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THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 

1916 




Publications of tlie University of Texas 



Publications Committee : 



W. J, Battle 
E. C. Barker 
J. M, Bryant 
G. C. Butte 
R. H, Griffith 



C. Hartman 

J. L. Henderson 

A, C. JUDSON 

J. A. Lomax 



The University publishes bulletins six times a month, so num- 
bered that the first two digits of the number show the year of 
issue, the last two the position in the yearly series. For ex- 
ample, No. 1701 is the first bulletin of the year 1917. These 
comprise the official publications of the University, publications 
on humanistic and scientific subjects, bulletins prepared by the 
Department of Extension and by the Bureau of Municipal 
Research, and other bulletins of general educational interest. 
With the exception of special numbers, any bulletin will be sent 
to a citizen of Texas free on request. All cammunications 
about University publications should be addressed to the Editor 
of University Publications, University of Texas, Austin. 



B40-217-750 



University of Texas Bulletin 

No. 1701: January 1, 1917 

A Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 

EDITED BY 

A. C. Judson, J. T. Patterson, J. F. Royster 




PubliJihed by the University six times a month and entered a? 

second-class mail matter at the postoflBce at 

AUSTIN, TEXAS 



."'' 






The benefits of education and of 
useful knowledge, generally diffused 
through a community, are essential 
to the preservation of a free govern- 
ment. 

Sam Houston^ 



Cultivated mind is the guardian 
genius of democracy. ... It is the 
only dictator that freemen acknowl- 
edge, and the only security that free- 
men desire. 

Mirabeau B. Lamar 



D. of D. 
AUG 29 1917 



PREFACE 

The University of Texas set apart five days for its Com- 
memoration of the Shakespeare Tercentenary and of Harvey's 
discovery of blood circulation, April 22-26, 1916. As part of 
tlie program four addresses were delivered in the main audi- 
torium. That on Monday morning was made by Professor John 
M. Manly, Head of the Department of English in the Univiersity 
of Chicago ; Judge R. L. Batts, of the Federal Bench, spoke 
Monday afternoon; Professor Barrett Wendall, of Harvard 
University, on Tuesday morning ; and Professor Wm. E. Ritter, 
Director of the Scripps Institution, California, on "Wednesday 
morning. Their spoken words are herein given the permanen'^e 
of print. 

Professor James W, Bright, of Johns Hopkins University, 
was the principal instructor of Doctor Calloway, to whom, in 
honor, this volume is dedicated. Professor Baskervili, of the 
University of Chicago, and Professor Gray, of Leland Stanford, 
Jr., University, were formerly teachers of English in the Uni- 
versity of Texas. The contributors of the other essays still are 
members of this university's faculty. 



CONTENTS 

Shakespeare Himself, by John Matthews Manly 1 

The Growth of Shakespeare, by Barrett Wendell 28 

Shakespeare, Purveyor to the Public, by R. L. Batts 47 

Rhythmic Elements in English, With Illustrations From 

Shakespeare, by James W. Bright 68 

The Quarrel of Benedick and Beatrice, by Charles Read 

Baskervill 89 

Shakespeare's Conception of Humor as Exemplified in 

Falstaff, by Henry David Cray 97 

The "Dying Lament," by Robert Adger Law 115 

Shakespeare and the Censor of Great Britain, by Evert 

Mordecai Clark 126 

Shakespeare and the New Stagecraft, by William Leigh 

Sovv^ers 138 

The Stratulax Scenes in Plautus' Trucidentus, by Edwin 

W. Fay 155 

William Harvey, by A. Richards 179 

"Know Thyself" — Interpreted by Socrates, Shakespeare, 

Wm. Harvey, and Modern Men, by Wm. E. Ritter. . . . 185 
Appendix 204 



SHAKESPEARE HIMSELF 
By John Matthews Manly 

Not many years ago it was currently admitted that the- 
earth had a north pole and a south pole, but it was held that 
the difficulties of reaching either were so great that the task 
would probably never be accomplished. Yet both the north 
pole and the south have been reached. 

To-day it is admitted by scholars as well as by the general 
public that somebody wrote the poems and plays commonly 
known as Shakespeare's, but it is doubted by many scholars 
Avhcther it will ever be possible from the information at our 
disposal to determine what kind of man he was, what were his 
tastes, his special accomplishments, his main interests, and the 
experiences of life, by which these were developed and culti- 
vated. The difficulties which seem to lie in the way of such 
an inquiry are neither few nor insignificant. In the first place,., 
the records and traditions remaining of the man himself and' 
the impressions he made on his contemporaries, though more- 
numerous than for almost any other dramatist of his time, stilll 
are too vague, too lacking in detail to be satisfactory to an age 
like ours, which in the case of its favorite writers is mainly con- 
cerned with items of petty personal gossip — where they will 
spend the summer, whether they write best in the early morn- 
ing or toward midnight, whether for breakfast food they prefer 
rolled oats or baled hay. In the second place, the other sources 
of information — the poems and plays themselves — offer special 
difficulties of interpretation. 

The plays are dramatic, the poems are narrative and imper- 
Bonal, and the sonnets are said to be conventional and equally 
incapable of personal application. In no passage can we be 
sure, it is said, that the ideas or the attitude expressed are the 
ideas or attitude of the author. His dramatis personae say and 
do what is not only appropriate to them but is the natural and 
inevitable expression of their own characters and social expe- 
rience. Furthermore, it is argued, the various characters in 
the plays display a range of experiences and of technical knowl- 



2 University of Texas Bulletin 

edge covering every field of human activity and thought; and 
consequently we cannot infer anything in regard to the author's 
experience and training except that they were universal ; and we 
must maintain either that he had specialized in every occupa- 
tion — as butcher's boy, wool dealer, glove maker, horseman, 
dog fancier, doctor, lawyer, sailor, musician, schoolmaster, sol- 
dier, and statesman — or that he was of so universal a genius that 
he knew all things without specializing in any. 

Such contentions as these might have been successfully main- 
tained half a century ago, but I hope to show that the most im- 
portant of them are no longer tenable and that from the plays 
and poems it is possible, by the exercise of care and judgment, 
to learn much more about Shakespeare himself than we have been 
accustomed to suppose. We cannot expect to-day to establish 
permanent habitations at either the north or the south pole of 
his personality; but we can, I hope, make a brief flight across 
the most interesting regions and fix some landmarks that may re- 
ward us for our present efforts and perhaps guide us in future 
journeys. 

With this hope in view, I shall ask you to make with me a 
rapid survey of the following features as displayed in the works : 

1. The native endowments of the author. 

2. His accomplishments and interests. 

3. The changes of interest in the plays, considered in order 
of composition. 

4. The changes of creative power in the later plays. 

I shall then ask you to consider briefly how far it is possible 
to adjust the personality and career revealed by the plays with 
the life history of William Shakespeare as vaguely given in the 
records and traditions. 

Of the native endowments of the author of the plays the most 
outstanding is perhaps his exuberant vitality. This is visible 
not only in the enormous number of living characters created 
by him, but most strikingly in the effervescent, limitless vitality 
of single characters from every period of his work. There are 
Biron, Longaville, and Dumaine in Love's Labor's Lost, each 
one, singly, enough to exhaust the wit, the humor, the animal 
spirits of any author, and yet each only a part of a play which 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 3 

is itself a complete bubble of vig-orons and extravagant youth. 
There is Mercutio, such an embodiment of fantastic, ebullient 
wit and humor that one critic has declared that if he had not 
died early in the play he could not have failed to be the death of 
the author. There is Sir John FalstafP, gross as a mountain, 
inexhaustible — "The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, 
man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter more 
than I invent or is invented on me : I am not only witty in my- 
self but the cause that wit is in other men." There are Rosalind 
and Touchstone, Portia and Nerissa and Gratiano ; and, in one 
of the latest plays, Perdita, a vivid incarnation of the light and 
color and sweetness of early spring, "Flora, pe-ering in April's 
front," and Autolycus, "littered under Mercury, a snapper-up 
of unconsidered trifles," "once," as he says, " a servant of the 
prince," "then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a 
motion of the Prodigal Son and married a tinker's wife; and 
having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in 
rogue. ' ' 

No less indicative of the author's exuberant vitality are the 
reckless volubility of almost every character, the piling up of 
fancy upon fancy, of jest upon jest, the long embellishment of 
humor and foolery and horseplay for no other reason than the 
delight they afford. "Come, come," says IMiercutio to Bcnvolio, 
"thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy. . . . 
Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for 
one would kill the other. Thou ! why, thou wilt quarrel with 
a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than 
thou hast." This would suffice any fancy of ordinary luxuri- 
ance, but to Shakespeare's teeming brain it is only a beginning: 
"Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no 
other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but 
such an eye could spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full 
of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath 
been beaten as addle as an egg for quarreling. Thou hast 
quarreled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath 
wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou 
not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before 
Easter? "With another for tying his new shoes with old ribands? 



4 University of Texas Bulletin 

And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarreling. ' ' What has Queen 
Mab to do with the action of the play of Romeo and Juliet T 
Nothing; but Mercutio mention^ her, and before anyone can 
stop him he has poured forth fifty lines of purest fantasy : 

"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 
In shape no bigger than an agate stone 
On the forefinger of an alderman — , ' ' 

and so he goes on with her horses, her chariot, her charioteer, 
and the dreams she brings as she gallops night by night through 
lovers' brains, o'er courtiers' knees, ladies' lips, lawyers' fin- 
gers, the parson's nose, and the soldier's neck. "Peace, peace, 
Mercutio," — interrupts Romeo — " peace! Thou talk'st of noth- 
ing." 

Whole scenes exist for no other reason than that the author's 
brain is teeming with situations and characters and humor or 
infinite jest. "But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstatf 
come, I prithee do thou stand in some by-room while I question 
my puny drawer [waiter] to what end he gave me the sugar; 
and do thou never leave calling ' Francis, ' that his tale to me may 
be nothing but 'Anon' [Coming!]." Then follows that famous 
scene of purest foolery. To drive away the time, indeed ! Say 
rather to permit the author, that reckless spendthrift, here as 
elsewhere to throw away his dramatic material with both hands, 
as a drunken sailor scatters his money. No other writer in the 
whole range of literature, with the possible exception of Fran- 
cois Rabelais, is so extravagant, so prodigal, so scornful of lit- 
erary economy, or makes upon his audience such an impression 
of inexhaustible vitality. 

- Natures of such abounding vigor are rarely distinguished by 
delicacy of perception, of feeling, or of utterance. And Shake- 
speare often has the coarseness of both thought and expression 
commonly associated with big, rough men — horse-breeders, coun- 
try-squires and the like — but also, as everyone remembers, his 
plays contain a thousand delicacies of perception, of sentiment, 
and of expression, — notable among which and familiar to all 
are the lines spoken by Othello, as he approaches his dreadful 
self-imposed task of killing Desdemona: 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 5 

"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul; 

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars! 

It is the cause. Yet I '11 not shed her blood. 

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow. 

And smooth as monumental alabaster, 

Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. 

Put out the light, and then put out the light ; 

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 

I can again thy former light restore. 

Thou cunning 'st pattern of excelling nature, 

I know not where is that Promethean heat 

That can thy light relume. When I have plucked the rose, 

I cannot give it vital growth again, 

It needs must wither : I '11 smell it on the tree. 

[Kisses lier.] 

balmy breath, that does almost persuade 
Justice to break her sword ! One more, one more. 
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee. 
And love thee after. One more, and this the last," 

Closely related to this delicacy of feeling is the tenderness 
which appears in many phases and which is often so undramatic 
that it must be attributed not to the speaking character but to 
the author himself. You will recall many passages of sympathy 
with birds and other animals — the classic one being that in As 
You Like If, in which not only the melancholy Jaques but even 
the Duke and the nameless First Lord speak of the sufferings 
of the stricken deer in language which must have seemed strong- 
ly sentimental to an age devoted to hunting. That this was 
Shakespeare's native feeling is indicated by the long passage in 
Venus and Adonis describing the hare-hunt from the point of 
view of the hare — a passage recalling in its spirit the later lines 
addressed by Eobert Burns to a field mouse. 

The sympathetic understanding displa^^ed in such passages is 
doubtless the result of dramatic realization working on physi- 
cal senses unusually keen and powers of observation unusually 
fine. Keenness of sight, hearing, and. smell are illustrated on 



6 University of Texas Bulletin 

every page of the plays. Examples of keenness of sight are so 
numerous that one hardly knows where to begin or end ; but one 
may take at random the passage in The Tempest in which Cali- 
ban enumerates the riches of the island — the springs, the ber- 
ries, the crabs, the jay's nest, the nimble marmosets, the clus- 
tering filberts — or the description of the applauding crowds in 
Coriolanus, or the spreading of the news of Arthur's death in 
King John: — 

"Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths; 
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads 
And whisper one another in the ear ; 
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist, 
"Whilst he that hears makes fearful action 
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes. 
I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus. 
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool. 
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news; 
Who with his shears and measure in his hand. 
Standing on slippers — which his nimble haste 
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet — 
Told of a many thousand warlike French, 
That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent. 
Another lean, unwashed artificer 
Outs off his tale and talks of Arthur's death." 

Sensitiveness of vision and images of form and color drawn 
from objects of all sorts we have come to expect of all poets, 
and most poets have been well endowed with such riches. Sensi- 
tiveness to sound is also common, but besides Shakespeare I can 
recall no one but Wordsworth to whose imagination sound made 
so constant an appeal. Every sound of the audible universe — 
loud and low, sweet- and harsh — seems to have sprung to his 
thought in a multitude of associations — the big church-bell that 
swings of its own M^eight after the ringers have ceased to pull 
it, the carmen whistling popular tunes on the London streets, 
the screeching of the metal as the workman turned a brazen 
candlestick, a dry wheel grating on its axletree. 

It is curious to note how large a part odors, pleasant and un- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 7 

pleasant, play in his work. He seems to have been as sensitive 
to them as to sounds; and indeed, as is well known, the two 
seem to have had similar pysehological effects upon him. "That 
strain again," says the Duke in Twelfth-NigJit, 

' ' That strain again ! it had a dying fall : 
Oh, it came o 'er my ear like the sweet sound 
That breathes upon a bank of violets. 
Stealing and giving odor." 
With this should be recalled the first hundred lines of Act V, 
Scene 1 of Tlie Merchant of Venice — wonderfully interwoven of 
moonlight and music and perfume and young love. 

Shakespeare's susceptibility to sweet odors is shown most sur- 
prisingly in a passage in Macheih. Wishing to give an idea of 
the fine situation and impressive architecture of Macbeth 's castle, 
he does so by means of a conversation between Duncan a,nd 
Banquo Mdiich appeals primarilj'' to the. sense of smell: 

'^Dun. This ca.stle hath a pleasant seat; the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentlo senses. 

Ban. This guest of summer. 

The temple-haunting martlet does approve 
By his lov'd mansionry that the heaven's breath 
Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, 
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed and proereant cradle. 
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd 
The air is delicate." 

In like manner, wishing to express the utmost limit of bore- 
dom, Hbtspur uses a figure compounded of unpleasant sounds 
and unpleasant odors. He says of Glendower and his incessant 
talk : 

"Oh, he is as tedious 
As a tired horse, a railing wife; 
Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live 
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far. 
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me 
In any summerhouse in Christendom." 



8 University of Texas Bulletin 

Whether Shakespeare approved of democratic ideas or not, 
we may at least infer that what he found most offensive about 
the lower classes was the filth and unpleasant odors. Coriola- 
nus says : 

"Bid them wash their faces 
And keep their teeth clean"; 

and again, addressing the mob of citizens': 

"You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate 
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men 
That do corrupt my air"; 

and again in the same play Menenius expresses his deepest con- 
tempt for them in such phrases as ' ' the breath of garlic eaters ' ' ; 

"You are they 
That made the air unwholesome when you cast 
Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at 
Coriolanua' exile." 

This fastidiousness is not confined to Shakespeare's maturer 
years. Notable examples of it may be found in so early a play 
as The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Had it been a conventional 
fastidiousness, due merely to training and association with men 
of refinement, he would probably have been content, as most 
Elizabethans were, to have the stenches which assailed the nose 
at every turn overpowered by perfumes, but the description of 
the perfumed lord whom Hotspur met after the heat of the bat- 
tle of Holmedon, and Touchstone's comments on civet may in- 
struct us that Shakespeare 's taste was for odors that were clean 
as well as sweet. 

Of impressions of taste and touch almost no use is made in 
the plays. Only a very few passages could be cited showing any 
keenness of these senses or any vivid associations with them. 
This might not seem strange in lyric poetry — though even there 
one recalls in other poets not a few figures from touch and taste, 
as in Ben Jonson's The Triumph of Charis: 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 9 

Have you seen but a bright lily grow, 
Before rude hands have touched it? 
Have you marked but the fall of the snow, 
Before the soil hath smutch 'd it? 
Have you felt the wool of the beaver ? 

Or swan's down ever? 
Or have smelt o' the bud of the briar? 

Or the nard in the fire? 
Or have tasted the bag of the bee? 
Oh so white ! oh so soft ! oh so sweet is she ! 

If a man is to become a great creative artist, it is not enough 
that his senses and powers of observation should be keen and 
extensive. He must remember, and remember vividly. Words- 
worth, to be sure, speaks of poetry as taking its origin from emo- 
tion recollected in tranquillity; but in the same paragraph he 
not only calls it the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions 
but also tells how, as the recollected emotion is contemplated, 
the tranquillity disappears and an emotion akin to the original 
one is born in the poet's mind. No one will be disposed to 
doubt either the vividness of Shakespeare's emotions or the 
tenacity of that memory which seems to have held everything, 
from a stray epithet in classical mythology to the look of the 
sham Hercules in some worm-eaten tapestry that once met his 
eye. For my part, I am ready to believe that he had every 
kind of memory known to the modern psychologist — visual, 
auditory, muscular — for I am confident that he did not store 
up in neat verbal formulas, ready for some future use, his 
wealth of observations of man's nature, a method practiced by 
Tennyson and many other writers. He rather recalled, by a 
process of association, when he was composing his speeches, 
vivid images of the objects which he was writing about, with all 
their color, their sharpness of outline, and their characteristic 
actions. This process, which I call visualization, could be illus- 
trated from every page of his work. Indeed in any description 
of men or things one of the most striking features is that Shake- 
speare seems to describe what is present at the very moment of 
writing. Many of the passages already quoted would illustrate 



10 University of Texas Bulletin 

this admirably, but we may take a brief scene drawn no doubt 
from a memory of his youth in Gloucestershire : 

"Fals. "Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a 
man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and bi^' 
assemblance of a man ? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. . . . 
Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph. " 

This is done, and Wart obviously shows no notion of how to 
use it, for Shallow cries : 

"He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I remem- 
ber at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn, .... 
there was a little quiver fellow, and a' would about and about, 
and come you in and come you in; 'rah tah tah' would a' say, 
'bounce' would a' say, and away again would a' go, and again 
would a ' come ; I shall ne 'er see such a fellow ! ' ' 

Before leaving the matter of Shakespeare's native endow- 
ments — which might well occupy us all day — we shall note only 
one more feature, but that one of uncommon significance for 
his art. He possessed in singular combination freedom and 
breadth of emotional swing together with an unequalled ca- 
pacity for self-criticism, for ridiculing the very emotions ' to 
which he had just given free and full indulgence. Love's Labor's 
Lost is all compact of this. Every emotion, every fanej^, every 
fad, is entertained with zest and enthusiaism, and each in turn is 
heaped with ridicule or censure. Romeo and Juliet is the epitome 
of passionate and tragic love, but the play itself contains jests 
and mockings of the very soul of love. 

That Shakespeare was not unfamiliar with tavern scenes and 
caroused in many a merry party at the Mermaid may be inferred 
not merely from tradition and from his creation of Sir John 
Falstaff and the world in which he moved, but above all perhaps 
from Sir John's famous apostrophe to the virtues of sherry wine: 

"A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It 
ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish, dull, 
and crudy vapors which environ it : makes it apprehensive, quick, 
forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes : which de- 
livered over to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes 
exeellent wit, — " and so on through a dozen nimble and de- 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 11 

lectable shapes which, we shall all agree, were never conceived in 
the brain of a teetotaler. Yet despite this evidence of his own 
susceptibility, it is Shakespeare who of set purpose creates the 
episode in Othello in which Cassio is disgraced by drunkenness; 
and it is he who puts into the mouth of this same Cassio his o.vn 
condemnation: "Drunk! and speak parrot! and squabble, swag- 
ger, swear, and discourse fustian with one's own shadow! thou 
invisible spirit of wine ! if thou hast no name to be known by, 
let us call thee devil ! ' ' And it is Shakespeare who, in play after 
play, with no dramatic rea.son or excuse, criticizes his fellow 
countrymen for that heavy-headed revel which makes them tra- 
duced and taxed of other nations. The traditions of Shake- 
speare's later life and of his death hardly allow us to take such 
expressions as the utterances of a reformed drunkard. We may 
moire easily credit him with being — like the rest of us, though 
in a higher degree and with more vivid sensations — one who feels 
the attractions of the sensual temptations of life, the cakes -and 
the ale, but is none the less responsive to the ideal, the ethical, 
even the ascetic. 

If we now attempt to discover from the plays the main in- 
terests and concerns of their author, we shall, I think, find them 
not unlike what might be expected of a man with the native 
qualities which we have just surveyed so skctchily and inade- 
quately. 

And first, we may state positively that the interests which 
above all other <Tre exploited in the poems and in the plays 
down to a rather late period are tho.se of the sportsman: horses, 
dogs, hunting, hawking, and, in a less degree, fishing, bowling, 
tennis, fencing, and archery. Most of these — especially those 
that predominate — were in the Elizabethan age the occupations 
of gentlemen, as distinguished from the common people. Bowl- 
ing and tennis were more or less open to men of all ranks of 
society, as taverns had public bowling greens and tennis courts ; 
archery was familiar to high and low, but had long been urged . 
upon the middle and lower classes for reasons of state. Angling 
was not yet a fine art; it was merely fishing, and was within 
the scope of anyone who could find an unprotected stream and 



12 University of Texas Bulletin 

provide a "hook and line — or, failing them, knew simpler methods 
of taking fish. In the light of Shakespeare's preference for 
other sports, his slight interest in this is not surprising. He knew 
it, as he knew bear-baiting, dice, and card play, but if we may 
judge from the evidence of the plays, he cared little about any 
of these things. 

With horses, dogs, hunting, and hawking, the case is very 
different. The language of the stables, the kennel, and the 
hunting field runs through all the works from Venus and Adonis 
to Othello. It is used with a freedom and frequency unintel- 
ligible except from a sportsman, and occurs under all conceivable 
circumstances and in the mouths of all classes and conditions 
of men and women. Some of the terms and expressions are 
purely general, such as might be- picked up by aiiy casual mem- 
ber of polite society; others are so technical that the}^ would 
be expected only from a professional or a skilled amateur. 

The language of the stable is all pervasive. A technical in- 
terest in the qualities of horses, their breeding, their training, 
and their management is displayed from first to last. Of course 
there were then in existence books on horses, as there were 
books on dogs, on hunting, on hawking, and on all the other con- 
cerns of a gentleman ; but no man ever became saturated with . 
horse-talk, as Shakespeare was, by reading a book on the horse. 
In the plays we find the language of the stable appropriately 
enough in the mouths of such persons as Petruchio, Biondello, 
Grumio, Falstaff, Nym, Hotspur and the Carriers; but what 
are we to say of its use by Touchstone, Hamlet, Rosalind, Maria, 
Dogberry, or the Fool in King Lear? For technical language 
let us hear Biondello, as he describes the fantastic array in 
which Petruchio came to fetch his bride: "Why, Petruchio is 
coming, in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches 
that have been thrice turned ; . . his -horse hipped with an old 
mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred ; besides, possessed with 
the glanders and like to mose in the chine ; troubled with the 
lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped with 
spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives, stark 
spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with bots, swayed in the 
back, and shoulder-shotten ; near-legged before; and with a half- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 13 

checked bit, and a headstall of sheep's leather, which, being re- 
strained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst and 
now repaired with knots: one girth six times pieced, and a 
woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters of her name 
fairly set down in studs, and here and there pieced with pack- 
thread. ' ' This is not copied from a horse-book : it is the copious 
extravagance of a man who had lived with horses for years. 
The author's fondness for dogs and knowledge of their kinds, 
their habits, and their qualities are strikingly displayed in Venus 
and Adonis, and in no less than seventeen plays; and there are 
casual undramatic allusions to dogs in about ten other plays. 
In the early work the interest is that of a sportsman in the 
qualities of hounds ; in the late, merely what may be called a 
recognition of dogs as members of the social organization. Com- 
pare Theseus' summary of the points of his hounds with Lear's 
querulous complaint of the ingratitude of his pets and Edgar's 
railing at dogs of all breeds. On the one hand, we have : 

The. My hounds ai'c bred out of the Spartan kind. 
So flew 'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew; 
Crook-kneed, and dew-lapp 'd like Thessalian bulls ; 
Slow in pursuit, but match 'd in mouth like bells, 
Each Under each. A cry more tuneable 
Was never holla 'd to, nor cheer 'd with horn, 
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. 
Judge when you hear. 

On the other : 

' ' The little dogs and all, 
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me. 
Edgar. Tom will throw his head at them. 
Avaunt, you curs ! 
Be thy mouth or black or white. 
Tooth that poisons if it bite ; 
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, 
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym, 
Or bob-tail tyke or trundle-tail; 
Tom will make them weep and wail : 
For, with throwing thus my head. 
Dogs leap the hatch and all are fled." 



14 University of Texas Bulletin 

Except the brief hue and cry with hunting dogs in TJie Tem- 
pest, there is, after Lear, not a single striking reference to dogs. 
The few allusions that occur are casual and often contemptuous. 
This is the more remarkable as the hunting scene in Cymbeline 
gives every opportunity for their effective use. 

Cats are rarely mentioned and always with indifference except 
as to their mousing ability. The epithet " cat " is used to express 
extreme contempt for a man ; and in The Merchant of Venice 
the phenomenon of cat fear is recognized. 

Hunting terms are found in one poem and twenty-four plays. 
They are of the most varied character, ranging from elaborated 
narratives and descriptions to casual figures and images, and 
from technical expressions to utterances of sympathy for the 
hunted animals. Mjost of the references are to the nobler sports 
of hunting the deer and the hare, but there are many scattered 
allusions to fox-hunting — then a less systematized and less digni- 
fied branch — and even to the disreputable delights of poaching. 
To a vast number of the characters who use hunting terms the 
use of them is naturally entirely appropriate — as, for example, 
the courtiers and keepers of Love's Labor's Lost, Falstaff, the 
Duke in As Tou Like It, Jaques, Orlando, Rosalind, Benedick, 
Ford, Page, Shallow, Sir Toby, Fabyan and many others — but 
the appropriateness to Titus Andronicus, Autidius, Scarus, Adri- 
ana, Dromio, Ulysses, lago, Roderigo, and Prospero is not very 
clear. After the date of Othello, the references, as we shall see 
later, are few and slight. Specific references to hawking, the 
sport par excellence of the nobility, are fairly common and 
usually ver}^ technical. 

All these matters have been studied in great detail and with 
great enthusiasm by Mr. D. H. Mjadden in his volume entitled 
''The Diary of Master William Silence." Mr. Madden is not 
only convinced that the author of the plays spent a number of 
his youthful years in these noble sports, but is able to produce 
several very convincing arguments to prove that the scenes of 
this early training were Warwickshire and that part of Glouces- 
tershire which lies among the Cotswold hills and which was 
inhabited in the sixteenth century by Justice Silence and his 
friends, Shallow and Slender and his humbler neighbors, William 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 15 

Visor of Woncot, Clement Perkes of the Hill, Goodman Double 
of Dursley, and Mouldy, Shadow, and Wart. 

Into harmony with this view may be brought not only the 
general acquaintance with outdoor life and farm matters — such 
as might be expected of any one who in the sixteenth century 
had spent his boyhood in the country or in a country village — but 
also such specific facts as the knowledge of sheep raising, the 
principal industry of the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire; 
the assignment of the sheep-shearing of TJie Winter's Tale to a 
date in the summer too late for a low country like that around 
Stratford but entirely appropriate for the Cotswold hill region; 
and the rather striking though trivial circumstance of the sowing 
of the headland with red wheat, mentioned in 2 Henry IV — a 
practice which seems to be confined, in the late summer, to this 
sole district of England. 

Mr. Madden even argues — and to my mind convincingly — that 
when Queen Elizabeth commanded Shakespeare to produce in 
two weeks a play showing Falstaff in love, the ingenious author 
supplied much of the atmosphere and many of the charactei's 
of this impromptu by transferring bodily to the purlieus of 
Windsor the little group of Gloucestershire worthies whom Fal- 
staff had — to our eternal advantage — so unnecessarily visited in 
the play that had just preceded. With this demonstration, Mr. 
Madden seems to have disposed for a time of the deer stealing 
tradition and Shakespeare's flight from Stratford — not that the 
proof that Shakespeare was a poacher in his youth would put 
him morally lower in our estimation than the many worthy 
citizens who at one time in their lives have been chased by irate 
owners of apple-orchards and watermelon patches, but merely 
because we are friendly to the truth. 

If Shakespeare had been merely a sportsman, he would of 
course never have been the author of the plays we know. But 
we have already seen that he was rich in many native endowments 
of far different quality. 

Of these the most striking are perhaps his endowments for 
music and art. No one can have failed to note the large extent 
to which music figures in the plays. Not only are about a hun- 



16 University of Texas Bulletin 

dred songs introduced or mentioned, not only are the whining 
tunes of popular ballads characterized contemptuously, not only is 
a general acquaintance with the terminology of music displayed, 
but allusions to music meet one at every turn, many long and 
beautiful passages are devoted to celebrating the charms and the 
influence of music, and characters of the most varied intelligence 
and training are made to exhibit such a knowledge of musical 
technique as could fairly be expected only of an accomplished 
musician. The aged John of Gaunt in Richard II says : 

"Oh, but they say the tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony. ' ' 

Says Mercutio of Tybalt's swordplay: 

"He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance and 
proportion ; rests me his minim rest — one, two, and the third in 
your bosom." 

"Will you play upon this pipe?" says Hamlet to Guildenstern. 

"Ky lord, I cannot." 

"I do beseech you." 

"I know no touch of it, my lord." 

" 'Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fin- 
ger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will 
discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops." 

"But these cannot T command to any utterance of har- 
mony. ..." 

"Why look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. 
You would play upon me; you would know my stops; you would 
pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from 
my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much 
music, excellent voice, in this little pipe, yet cannot you make 
it speak." 

The most specific references are to singing and to instruments 
used for accompanying the voice. It is true that these are the 
times in which the development of music had reached its highest 



Memorial Voliune to Shakespeare and Harvey 17 

point in Elizabethan England, but the form of some of the 
references makes it practically certain that Shakespeare himself 
sang — or thought he sang — and knew enough of some instru- 
ment, the lute perhaps, to play accompaniments: 

"For government, though high and low and lower, 
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, 
Congreeing in a full and natural close, 
Like music." 

"T (lid hilt tell hei' she mistook he)- frets. 

And bowed her hantl to teach her fingering." 

The passage which perhaps sliows most vividly the author's 
technical familiarity with singing is in the repartee between Julia 
and Lucctta in Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1 (piote it. italicizing 
the technical terms : 

Jul. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rime, 
Luc. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune -. 

Give me a note : your ladyship can set. 
Jul. As little by such toys as may be possible; 

Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.' 
Luc Tt is too heav}/ for so light a tune. 
Jul. Pleavy ! belike it hath some burden, then? 
Luc. Ay; and melodious were it. would you sing it. 
Jul. And why not you? 

Jul. I cannot reach so high. 

Jul. Let's see your song \tal-ing the letter]. How now, 



minion 



IjUc Keep time there .<it{ll, so you will sing it out: 
And yet methinks, I do not like this tune. 

Jul. Tou do not? 

Luc. No madam ; it is too sharp. 

Jul. You, minion, are too saucy. 

Luc. Nay, now you are too flat 

And mar the concord with too harsh a descant 
There wanteth but a mean to fill your song. 

Jul. The mean is drown' d with your unridy hass." 



18 University of Texas Bulletin 

It may even be suspected that the elaborateness of Hortensio 's 
technique in Tlie Taming of the Shrew — if indeed it is Shake- 
speare's — is due to the newness of his technical knowledge of 
music and his consequent pride in it. 

But so much is known of this matter, and the celebrated pas- 
sages on music are so familiar, that we need not dwell upon it 
further, except to note that, like sport, music was especially af- 
fected by the upper classes. 

The interest in art and the technical knowledge of it mani- 
fested by the author of the plays have attracted less attention, 
probably because most of the allusions are casual or figurative. 
Allusions -to art occur in fourteen plays, in Venus and Adonis, 
Lucrece, and one sonnet ; and only once — in The Wiiiter 's Tale — 
is the use of art topics motived, by the dramatic situation. The 
first scene of Timon of Athens is largely occupied, as everyone 
knows, with an elaborate and rather technical discussion of the 
relations of painting and poetry ; but the most remarkable docu- 
mentation of Shakespeare's interest in painting and knowledge 
of it is found in The Rape of Lucrece. Two hundred lines — near- 
ly one-ninth of the poem — are devoted to the detailed description 
of a picture of the Siege of Troy. No motive for the introduction 
of the picture can be given, unless it is alleged that the poet must 
in some way indicate the passage of time before Collatine can 
obey the summons ; but even then the choice of a picture to en- 
gage the attention of Lucrece during this time becomes signifi- 
cant. 

The description of this picture deserves attention in many 
ways. Not only is the description very detailed, but the details 
are not such as would impress the ordinary gazer at a picture. 
They may be the impressions of an absolutely naive vision which 
has never before been confronted by a picture, or they may rep- 
resent what is seen by the trained eye of the artist, which has 
recovered its naive power, its capacity to see only what is actually 
on the canvass, and not, as ordinary eyes do, what the painter 
wishes to imply and suggest. 

I cannot find that any English artist ever painted such a 
picture, but the combination of large masses with infinite indi- 
vidual detail recalls the work of certain Italian painters of the 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 19 

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for example Giulio Romano, 
the only artist named in the plays or poems. There are, indeed, 
grounds for believing that the author had Giulio 's work iu 
mind ; but the discussion of this problem is too important to be 
a side-issue in the present inquiry. 

Returning to the description, note the sweep of vision and 
the detail : 

' ' There might you see the laboring pioneer. 
Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust; 
And from the towers of Troy there would appear 
The very eyes of men, through loopholes thrust, 
Gazing upon the Greeks. ... 

"There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand, 

As 'twere encouraging the Greeks to fight; 

Making such sober action with his hand 

That it beguil'd attention, charm 'd the sight: 

In speech it secm'd his beard, all silver white, 

Wagg'd u].- and down, and from his lips did fly 

Thin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky. 

"About him were a press of eager faces, 
Which seem '(J to swallow up his sound advice; 
All jointly listening, but with several graces, 
As if some mermaid did their ears entice, 
Some high, some low, the painter was so nice ; 
The scalps of many, almost hid behind, 
To hump up higher seem'd, to mark the mind." 

If this is not sufficiently in the manner of the early Renais- 
sance painters, note the following details : 

"Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head. 
His nose being shadow 'd by his neighbor's ear; 
Here one, being throng'd, bears back, all boll'n and red; 
Another, smother 'd, seems to pelt and swear. 



20 ' University of Texas Bulletin 

For such imaginary work was there; 
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind. 
That for Achilles' image stood his spear. 
Grip 'd in an unseen hand ; himself, behind, 
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: 
A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head. 
Stood for the whole, to be imagined. ' ' 

Is this the description of a picture which our author had seen 
in some great house in England or Italy? Or is it his ow^n device, 
his own vision of what some painter might put into a picture of 
Troy? In either event, it betrays the closest observation of the, 
methods of Renaissance painting in general composition and 
individual detail ; and tedious as so much quotation may have 
been, it seemed necessary to bring before you this significant' 
passage from a neglected poem. 

In ^general, the allusions to art, though brief and scattered, 
suggest something more than the interest of the critic ; they sug- 
gest the attitude of one who knew the feeling of the brush in the 
hand and the application of color. This is far from saying that 
Shakespeare was an artist or ever had any technical training; 
but it is in keeping with the fact — especially characteristic of 
the period of the Renaissance — that a richly endowed nature 
often seeks expression through all the kindred arts of music, 
poetry, and painting. But the whole subject of the art refereupes 
should be studied by one who understands the technicalities of 
painting. 

"With the passages which indicate that the author was an actor, 
or at least was keenly interested in the actor's art, I will not de- 
tain you. The most important of these passages — those in As 
You Like It, in Hamlet, and in Troilus and Cressida — are fa- 
miliar to everyone. Allusions of this nature begin in King John 
and continue to Antony and Cleopatra and The Winter's Tale; 
but, as compared with the allusions to sport, they are few in 
number, as if the author were a little shy of "talking shop." 

Phrases and figures from two fields of human — or inhu- 
man — thought occur in such numbers in the plays as to have 
suggested that the author was a specialist in each; I mean 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 21 

the field of law and that of medicine. Was Shakespeare a learned 
lawyer? With due deference to Lord Campbell, I am con- 
vinced he was not. Was he a skilled physician? With due 
deference to Drs. Bucknill and Orville W. Owen, I am confi- 
dent that he was not. That he had some knowledge of both law 
and medicine cannot be denied. But it may be safely asserted 
that in Elizabethan England every man at some time in his life 
became ill and went to law. The law that Shakespeare knew is 
perfectly accounted for by the suits — mainly about land — \^i^ 
which his father and he himself were involved and by the fact 
that in such a town as Stratford the most exciting entertainment 
an ambitious boy could find was a trial at court in which dis- 
tinguished lawyers contended. The medicine that he knew was 
either such as was practiced by his mother and his wife, or such 
as he might as a boy have I'cad in the garret in the cj'clopedia 
of family medicine in vogue in his day — say Batman's version of 
Bartholomaeus Anglicus. That the blood "visited" the heart 
was no anticipation of Harvey's discovery; that "the sovereign 'st 
thing on earth was parmaceti for an inward bruise" involved 
the same skill in materia medica as is today involved in pre- 
scribing Sloan's Liniment or St. Jacob's Oil for the same ail- 
ment. 

Shakespeare was not a bookish man. I will not say that he 
did not derive much from books; yet his debt to them shows 
rather that he read comparatively few but read them with eager 
interest and an unfailing memoiy than that he read many. You 
may cite the list Dr. Anders gives of liooks that he knew, but the 
length of this list does not shake my opinion. You yourself — 
whether a bookman or not — probably read as many books a year 
as Anders can list for Shakespeare's whole life. If it has taken 
scholars many years to trace all his bookish borrowings to their 
sources, this also is not against my contention that Shakespeare 
was not a bookish man. If a honey bee should fly over a field of 
clover and leave his sign manual on every clover head from 
which he sipped his honey, it would take a diligent "research 
man" many years to list the sources of the honey, even if the bee 
had visited only a hundred clover heads. Shakespeare's classical 
learning and his knowledge of foreign literatures are not those 



22 University of Texas Bulletin 

of a scholar but those of a man possessed of quick intelligence, 
boundless curiosity, and a memory tenacious of everything that 
engaged Ms interest. 

Shall we inquire whether the author of the plays was a pro- 
testant or a papist, a democrat or a conservative? Articles and 
books have been written on these questions, but they have little 
bearing on our present inquiry. It is, however, possible, I be- 
lieve, to show a gradual deepening of the author's thought about 
life, from facile and trivial epigrams, through a period of some- 
what cynical worldly wisdom, to a sense of the mystery of life ; 
but this topic we may leave for another inquirer or another oc- 
casion. 

A friend who is a connoisseur in children insists that I shall 
not blink the fact that Shakespeare knew very little about 
children and except for sentimental purposes cared less. In 
little girls he shows scant interest; Baby Juliet is more sympa- 
thetically treated by Brooke. All the boys introduced for dra- 
matic purposes — ^the young princes and Clarence's son in Bicfi- 
ard III, Moth, Prince Arthur, Macduff's son, the son of Cori- 
olanus, Mamilius^^are of much the same type, pert and older 
than their years. The slight sketch of the stolid William strug- 
gling with Latin grammar in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 
which has no dramatic purpose, is the most natural portrait of 
a boy in the plays, and reads like an amused reminiscence of 
the author's school days. 

One shrewd passing remark by Beatrice shows indeed keen 
observation, but scarcely love, of children': " — like my lady's 
eldest son, evermore tattling." 

The changes in' the kinds of subjects most often referred to 
casually and most often drawn upon for metaphors, compari- 
sons, and other figures of speech are of importance for two rea- 
sons. In the first place, the fact that there are such changes, 
conforming roughly to the order in which the plays were prob- 
ably written, proves that the method of the dramatist was not 
the impersonal, objective, inhuman method it is so commonly 
represented as being, and that interests which predominate in 
the plays may safely be assumed to have predominated at the 



Memorval Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 23 

same time in the thoughts of the dramatist. He wrote about 
horses and hounds and hawks and music and painting, not mere- 
ly because some people liked such things, but because his own 
thoughts were at the time full of them. In the second place, the 
succession of interests in the plays may inform us primarily of 
the succession of interests in the life of the dramatist, and sec- 
ondarily may be used in connection with the life records to test 
whether the author of the plays can have been the actor "Wil- 
liam Shakespeare who was born at Stratford-on-Avon, and who 
after a notable career in London retired to Stratford to lead the 
life of a well-to-do citizen and to die there. In both these re- 
spects it is worthy of attention that outdoor interests continue 
throughout the plays, but with a change of direction and form. 
The interest in hunting and hawking, of which the early plays 
are full, almost disappears after Othello (1604). Horses are 
of interest from first to last, but the dogs of the early plays are 
hunting dogs, hounds, and such like, while in Lear (1606) and 
later plays the few dogs that are mentioned are either house 
dogs or hounds that are off duty, as it were. Archery is often 
mentioned in Love's Labor's Lost, but the allusions gradually fall 
off and after Hamlet there are perhaps only three. Fencing 
seems to have been confined practically to the period from Borneo 
and Juliet to Hamlet. Fishing, which figures comparatively 
little at any time, comes in with The Mercliant of Venice and 
increases slightly as time goes on. Agricultural phrases and 
figures are used practically throughout the plays and by persons 
in all walks of life, but after Shakespeare began to form an 
estate at Stratford and especially after his purchase of one hun- 
dred and seven acres of land in 1602 — or shall we say, from 
and after Troilus and Cressida? — such matters as gardening, 
grafting, pruning, transplanting, plowing, appear frequently; 
while, curiously enough, Coriolanus contains a number of allu- 
sions to the work of the miller. 

Of the changes in power displayed by the plays I shall say 
little. In the first place, because it is too large a topic to form 
a mere paragraph in another subject. In the second place, I 
have just seen the title of Professor Wendell's address of to- 



24 University of Texas Bulletin 

morrow, and it suggests that he will treat this topic fully. But, 
for the purposes of this discussion, I must remind you that the 
plays actually do show changes in tone and in power which can- 
not be without significance in regard to the author himself. We 
know that the early plays were partly apprentice work in re- 
touching and revising old plays, and partly somewhat tentative 
and timid but still independent experiments in lines already 
pursued by other men; that the time before 1600 was the time 
of rich productiveness — counting twenty-three plays for a 
period of ten years or little more ; that from 1600 to 1606 was 
the period of the greatest and most serious plays. Only six 
plays were produced in these six years, but all are concerned 
with the most serious problems of life, all are marked by a tone 
which approaches and often reaches pessimism; and all possess 
an intensity of conception and phrasing elsewhere unexampled. 
The plays in question need only be named to recall their prob- 
lems and their mode of treatment : Measure for Measure, Ham- 
let, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. 

From 1606 to 1609 there comes a lapse, not merely of activity, 
but of power. These years give us only Timon of Athens and 
Pericles, both written in collaboration and both containing even 
in their best passages only faint or sullen gleams of the ancient 
magical fire. ' 

Froni 1609 to 1612 or 1613 we have a sort of rekindling of 
energy and as a result six plays : Antony and Cleopatra, Cori- 
olanus, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and part 
of Henry VIII. All of these either repeat ancient themes or are 
imitations of current successes, and the only one which shows 
the old power of creating vital human figures is Antony and Cle- 
opatra. In all the other plays the dramatis personae are for the 
most part either not new or not human. Leontes is a faded 
Othello, Perdita a resuscitated Rosalind ; Ferdinand and Mi- 
randa are sweet but thin and bloodless abstractions of forgot- 
ten youth, and Prospero exists in our imagination and memo- 
ries mainly because he buried his books deeper than ever plummet 
sounded and spoke those unforgettable lines about the insubstan- 
tiality of material things : 

' ' We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep." 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 25 

I have tried thus far to set before you a few of the most strik- 
ing facts of personality — not a tithe of the whole evidence — 
evinced in the body of work which is, as all judo:ments agree, 
the most wonderful produced as yet by any mind. Is it possi- 
ble that such a brain belonged to the man of Stratford? Let 
us briefly compare the recorded facts and traditions of his 
career with the testimony that, as we have seen, is embodied in 
the plays and poems. 

The man, William Shakespeare, came of farming stock and 
was born and lived as boy and youth in a country village. 
Hbw could it have been otherwise with the dramatist who in 
speaking of fair weathor friends says that "they will out of 
their burrows, like conies after rain"? So casual an allusion 
could have groAvn only out of an experience so familiar that it 
had come to be a mode of thinking. 

Ben Jonson says that his friend Shake-speare was lacking in 
education; tradition points to the Stratford grammar school as 
the place where he learned "small Latin and less Greek"; the 
plays are not merely — for an age that reveled in classical cul- 
ture — unschola.stic. but i-evcal tlie jn'actical man's coutempt for 
bookishness. 

Tradition and the known facts of Shakespeare's marriage at- 
test a wild youth, such as the old shepherd describes in The 
Winter's Tale: "I would there were no age between sixteen 
and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest: 
for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with 
child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting [Horns] — 
Hark you now ! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen 
and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?" As the passage is 
totally unwarranted by dramatic purpose, it is strongly sugges- 
tive of personal reminiscence. 

In the Gloucestershire town of Dursley, in the Cotswolds, 
there is a belief held from time immemorial that Shakespeare 
spent part of his youth thei'e; and it is a fact that a family of 
Shakespeares lived in that place. You will remember that in 
Richard II and in 3 Hcnrij IV the dramatist went out of his 
way to bring in these Gloucestershire wilds and their inhabi- 
tants. For what possible reason except his own abiding interest 
in them ? 



26 University of Texas Bulletin 

The facts show that Shakespeare early shook off provincial- 
ism and domestic ties and worked out a successful career; and 
the dramatist, late in life, remembers how • 

" . . . . the spirit of a youth 
That means to be of note, begins betimes." 

The recorded facts deal with the career of the actor-manager 
who expresses at length in Hamlet views on contemporary 
drama, methods of acting, and the public taste. 

Both facts and tradition show that Shakespeare had the 
friendly patronage of the Earls of Southampton, and Essex. 
The plays and poems reveal decided interest in the pursuits of 
the gentleman, and eomplimentarj^ allusions to both these noble- 
men are not wanting. 

The records show that Shakespeare lost his son Hamnet, eleven 
years old, in 1596. "Whether or not the grief of Constance at 
the loss of her son was added to King John after that experience, 
we find in Much Ado About Nothing, written not long after 
Shakespeare's own loss, the dramatist expressing with an in- 
tensity, not in keeping with a comedy, a father's grief for the 
supposed death of a child. Again, tradition quotes Shake- 
speare 's father as saying that ' ' Will was a good son ' ' ; and the 
play of Hamlet, which appeared immediately after John Shake- 
speare's death, emphasizes far more than the source of the plot 
warrants the affection of a son for a father. 

The records show the acquisition of landed property and the 
retirement from the stage of the actor-manager; and the dra- 
matists 's later plays show increased interest in agriculture, and 
gardening, and sheep-breeding. 

The brief records of Shakespeare's later years are of money 
matters and of lawsuits connected with them. The plays are 
few in number, 'show a falling-off of power, and an atmosphere 
of pessimism and gloom. The last tradition told of him is that 
he died as the result of a drinking bout. 

What are we to infer from all this? 

It is not impossible — so much only is it safe to say — not im- 
possible that both records and plays point to one conclusion. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 27 

the exhaustion of the exuberant vitality of early life and the 
consequent inroads of a hypersensitive spirit upon the weak- 
ened body, resulting in premature loss of power and illness 
that interfered with outdoor interests and an active life. And in 
that case, the lawsuits that have so troubled idealistic critics are 
a mere sign of the deeper irritation that 

"Hath puddled his clear spirit, and in such cases 
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things." 

Hiow this may have been, perhaps we shall never know. Yet 
I am held by a growing conviction that infinite patience and in- 
finite care in sifting out the personal from the dramatic ele- 
ments in the Shakespearean plays will not only identify beyond 
the shadow of doubting the author of them with the Stratford 
player, but will toll us more than wc now dream it is possible to 
know of the man himself. 



3— S 



• THE GROWTH OF SHAKESPEARE 

By Barrett Wendell 

In all great literature there is no quality more certainly con- 
clusive than its incessant freshness. One final test of whether 
a familiar poem or a familiar poet is truly to be held enduring 
is a marvellous sense, whenever you turn to the lines— or at least 
to such of them as prove significant for you — ^that these utter- 
ances are as little staled by familiarity as if you had never 
glanced at them before. In this perennial freshness, the while, 
there is something delusive ; for as the conditions amid which 
poets lived pass from life, and their poems survive, there must 
come to human beings of later and remote times some gathering 
perception if not of obstacle, at least of perplexity as to just what 
this passage and that may 'mean. In the matter of language, 
this is obvious. For ages the tongues of antiquity, deathless 
though they be, have been intelligible only by means of study. 
They have not used the words, nor even the precise forms of 
language, in which any living man has actually thought. To a 
less degree this is true even of those poets who long ago ex- 
pressed themselves in languages which we still use, hardly aware 
that they are always flexibly and insensibly growing or fading. 
No generation, and still more no century, thinks and speaks and 
lives in quite the same terms as that which preceded it ; and pei*- 
haps a deeper change still is the change in the daily a&pects of 
earthly experience. So, when a poet begins to pass — still more 
when he has finally passed — from the transitory circumstances of 
his human life into the enduring immortality of assured greatness, 
each fleeting generation must find new perplexities in the lines 
which record the message of his spirit. Therefore study grows 
needful — study of the conditions which surrounded his life, 
study of what words meant to him and no longer quite mean to 
us. 

This very study, though, concerning itself not so much with 
the poet himself and his works as with things about them, has 
a danger of its own to which scholarship is prone to succumb. 
Nowadays those who study poetry are increasingly apt to occupy 

[28] 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 29 

themselves not so mneli with the truth which poetry contains, 
with the secret of its deathlessness, as with variously relevant 
facts, themselves mortal, which may often rather obscure it than 
illuminate it. 

These generalizations are nowhere more obviously true than 
in the ease of Shakespeare. Three hundred years ago there died 
in a Warwickshire- town a self-made local worthy, who had ac- 
cumulated his small fortune by honest work in London as an 
actor, as a popular playwright, and as a shrewd theatrical man- 
ager. That was probably what the friends thought about Avho 
laid him to rest in Stratford Church. To-day people are gath- 
ering all over the Engish-speaking world to celebrate his mem- 
ory as chief poet of our ancestral litcature, and perhaps the 
chief poet of all the modern world. 

You can hardly have a greater contrast than this — between 
the Shakespeare whom a few Englishmen knew in the flesh and 
what the name of Shakespeare means after the lapse of three 
centuries. Every condition of his earthly life is a thing of the 
past. The trivial circu.mstanccs of his personal career are dead 
and gone; so are the strangelj^ outworn and forgotten conditions 
of the theatre for which he wrote ; so even are the historic facts 
of Elizabethan England and of that Stuart England which 
in his later years was already started on its course toward so 
great a political and social revolution that the England he had 
knoAvn was extinct before those who might have seen him in the 
flesh were all in their graves. Even the native language he used 
is not quite that in which we try to celebrate his memory; for 
in his time English was making and in ours it has long been 
breaking. Quite to understand what his words mean, we must 
study their history. Still more we must study even to guess 
what scene after scene in his plays, allusion after allusion, 
probably meant to the audiences for whom they were written. 
And yet all the while this work of his, mostly made, so far as 
we can now tell, only to respond, like popular literature at any 
time, to the demand of the moment, lives today, and will live 
80 long as our English language means anything to any human 
being. For as the years and generations and the centuries 
begin to pass, men have long since come to know that only the 



30 University of Texas Bulletin 

body of him is dead. Even though the squalid theatres he wrote 
for have long since vanished into thin air, the lines which he 
meant mostly for their mortal public have never ceased to ap- 
peal to generations in his day still unborn. Audiences care for 
them still ; still more, they reward thoughtful study. You can 
hardly turn to any of his greater works — indeed, you can hardly 
let your eye fall on the memorable passages in those lesser works 
of his which comparatively seem trivial — -without the constant 
sense, which is so final a test of poetic greatness, that you are 
reading these familiar scenes or pondering on these familiar 
passages for the first time. What in all likelihood he meant 
only to be the work of the moment has long since proved itself 
deathless. 

During the present year these considerations have happened 
to impress me deeply. Since last June, for accidental reasons, 
I have twice read through the whole work of Shakespeare in 
what is conjectured to be its chronological order. Such sum- 
mary reading has its disadvantages; it gives one no time to 
pause and consider the myriad questions of technical scholarship 
which are bound to gather about any enduring work of the 
past; it gives no time to trace intricacies or perplexities of allu- 
sion, no time to do anything like justice to the work of those 
countless scholars who have long since discovered and recorded 
more things about the poems and the poet than the poet could 
ever consciously have known or dreamed of. At least, however, 
it has one advantage; you turn to each work somewhat as the 
poet expected that it should be turned to ; you take each play by 
itself all at once, as play wrights . always mean their plays to be 
taken. And, no matter how familiar the plays may have be- 
come to you, not one of them fails to meet the test of greatness 
on which we have been dwelling. Each time you read any of 
them, you find that it impresses you as if you had never read it 
before. In this aspect, indeed, the literature of all Europe has 
only two other poets comparable with Shakespeare: one is 
Homer, the other is Dante. 

Reading Shakespeare's plays in chronological order, the while, 
you will hardly find astonishing power in those which the gen- 
eral consent of modern critics places earliest. Though the 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 31 

stage for which Shakespeare wrote was hardly in existence when 
he was born, it had already developed, by the time when he 
began to write, fairly fixed conventions of its own; and though 
none of the works attributed to him lack admirable passages, 
those which are thought to be his earlier will probably impress 
you as little more than conventional Elizabethan dramas illumi- 
nated by occasional splendors of phrase. 

At least to me, the first play where my sense of freshness be- 
comes a sense of wonder is, curiously enough, a play which is 
often thought characteristic rather of his time than of himself. 
This is so much the case, indeed, that the most literate of Amer- 
ican critics, Mr. James Russell Lowell, was disposed to think 
Shakespeare's share in it no more than that of occasional re- 
vision. "When doctors disagree, who shall decide? In Shakes- 
peare's own life-time, this play was certainly attributed to him. 
In the first collection of his work it was certainly included. Cer- 
tainly, too, so long as Shakespeare familiarly held the stage it 
was among the plays which were most popular, and even though 
it bear so many marks of the outworn conventions amid which 
he began to write, it surely impresses one who reads it not by 
itself, but in its order among his works, as incontestably marked 
by the touch which is liis alone. I mean Richard III. 

In the First Folio, you remember, the plays of Shakespeare 
were divided into three classes : comedies, histories, and trag- 
edies. Without troubling ourselves to define what comedies and 
tragedies are, we may properly assume that they are species of 
drama familiar throughout literature. What the editors of 
Shakespeare called histories, on the other hand, are things 
almost peculiar to the stage of Shakespeare's time. The later 
part of Queen Elizabeth's reign was a time when books of his- 
tory were not generally accessible. It was a time, as well, when 
the art of reading was by no means so generally mastered as 
has been the case between whiles; and it was a time when the 
accidents of political history had excited in England a patriotic 
enthusiasm for Weroic English tradition unparallelled before. 
As a matter of fact, the defeat of the Spanish Armada took 
place almost at the moment when Shakespeare probably began 
his theatrical apprenticeship. Under these circumstances, hack 



32 University of Texas Bulletin 

playwrights took the chronicles where the traditional facts of 
English history were most accessibly recorded; and with little 
more concern for dramatic form than to reduce the story of a 
reign to a length which couid be acted in one or two sessions, 
they translated the long, discursive narrative into manageable 
dramatic terms. The earliest examples of this kind of work in 
the plays commonly attributed to Shakespeare are the three 
formless and undoubtedly collaborative dramas known as the 
three parts of King Henry VI. As you read these through, and 
dull work it is, one fact impresses you toward the end. Among 
tEe very numerous characters presented by means of shapeless 
and blatant conventions\long since outworn, one emerges as dis- 
tinctly individual. That is the brilliant, unscrupulous, evil 
Eichard, Duke of Gloucester. Thus we begin to know the cen- 
tral figure of that far more nearly great play, Bichard III. 

This play, which in the sequence of Shakespeare's English 
histories immediately follows on the third part ol Henry VI, 
continuing the hardly broken story, differs from its predeces- 
sors in one noteworthy aspect : it brings English, history to a 
point which at the time when it was written had not only his- 
torical but also political, or rather dynastic, significance. Dur- 
ing the fifteenth century the crown of England had been mostly 
in dispute, and the civil wars which had vexed the country had 
retarded the progress of English prosperity' and society. These 
wars came to an end in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, 
where a fresh usurper, the Earl of Richmond, defeated the last 
king of the house of York, and founded a new dynasty, des- 
tined to survive unbroken for more than a hundred years, and to 
reach its culmination in the person of that great Queen, Eliza- 
beth, who seems to have stirred the loyal enthusiasm of Eng- 
lishmen beyond any other sovereign who ever sat on their throne. 
Pretty clearly though, the original title of Henry VII to the 
throne was based on no more divine right than that of con- 
quest—successful brute force. A state of political feeling en- 
sued which we of America should be among the first sympathet- 
ically to understand. In order to kindle enthusiasm for what 
amounted to a revolutionary government, it was highly desira- 
ble to represent the government which this had superseded as 
thoroughly bad. The American analogy is clear. Our inde- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 33 

pendence was based on armed revolution; and for 14:0 years 
American school-children have been deliberately taught to be- 
lieve ancestral England tyrannical and hostile, and to suppose 
King George III, who was really an honest and respectable Ger- 
man gentleman, to have been a deliberately blood-thirsty tyrant. 
Similarly, any presentation of the life and character of King 
Richard III which would have been tolerated by. the government 
of Elizabethan England was compelled to set him forth as a 
deep-dyed villain. 

By the time w^hen the play of Bichard III was produced, 
somewhere about 1593, the dramatic means of doing so were 
conventionally established. The playwright either took some old 
play, if he had it, or, if he had none, went straight to the pages 
of the chronicler — in this case the loyal Elizabethan, Holinshed 
— and turned what he found there into the most effective dra- 
matic speeches which he could devise. For such speeches, at 
that time, there were two or three conventional requisites now 
completely obsolete. ' Elizabethan audiences liked the sort of 
thing which we call rant — long, sonorous, extravagant outbursts; 
of utterance. More subtlj^, but just as certainly, they delighted 
in mere novelty of phrase. They liked to hear for the first time 
new words and new combinations of words. Until very lately, 
their English language had long been poor and feeble in the mat- 
ters of variety and ease. For half a century or so, the chief 
energy of English poets, Avho had often been ihen of fashion as 
well, had been directed to enthusiastically ingenious attempts to 
show what could be done with this language, — by 1500, for 
poetical purposes, almost barbarous. In Shakespeare's time this 
effort, originally fashionable, had grown popular too ; so who- 
ever should write an acceptable play must fill it from beginning 
to end with what his audience would feel to be fresh turns of 
phrase, much as a modern composer of popular opera must glad- 
den his auditors with what they take to be brand new tunes. 

Most likely we have now reminded ourselves of how the 
play of RicJiard III was conceived by whoever wrote it, and of 
all that Shakespeare, whatever his part in it, ever intended it 
to be. It was meant for a dramatically popular presentation, 
in fresh and sonorous terms, of a reig*n in English history which 



34 University of Texas Bulletin 

for dynastic reasons had to be Set forth, in extremely unpopular 
light. Every one of these conditions is now a matter of the 
past. There is nothing about any one of them a bit more vital 
in our time than the bones of William Shakespeare in his Strat- 
ford grave. And yet the play lives, and so far as I can discern, 
it lives mostly because from all these dead conventions of pur- 
pose and of construction, and from amid a numerous group of 
characters almost as remote from our unstudied sympathies as 
the conventions which surround them, there somehow emerges, 
all the more vital for the archaic strangeness of his surround- 
ings, one character, the crook-back king, monstrous, if you 
choose to analyze him, in spirit as in form, and yet somehow 
elusively, yet certainly, human. 

This Eichard, Duke and King alike, is the same human being 
who emerged distinct in the later scenes of King Henry VI. 
In Colley Gibber's revised, or rather reconstructed, version of 
the play, indeed, which for a century or more was the form 
commonly acted, a certain number of passages from Henry VI 
were included. But in Bichard III, as preserved in the canon 
of Shakespeare, the central character is so distinct that we 
should know him for an individual, different from any other 
in life or in literature, without a line from any but the play 
which bears his name. From beginning to end his wits are alive. 
He is always aware not only of the circumstances which sur- 
round him, but of his purpose to control them. He has in view 
the single, unswerving end of making himself not only liter- 
ally but actually royal. Beside him, the men who surround him 
are mere puppets with whom he can play at will; and the will 
of him, unfathomably and wholly selfish, prevails until it finds 
itself at last broken only with life in its clash with the inexor- 
able course of history, itself a part of the course of nature. 

Monstrous though this conception may seem, — monstrous if 
only because it so tremendously assumes a pet folly of mankind, 
the notion that earthly affairs can actually be controlled by 
'dominant human will, — the character of Richard is somehow 
aso presented that the oftener you read and put aside the lines 
which set it forth, the more instinctively you think of him as 
a real man. In view of this, one of the surprises wiiich con- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 35 

stantly recur when you turn back to the lines is the amazing 
remoteness of the method of his presentation from anything 
which would now be conceivably possible. 

Take, for example, the most familiar speech he makes, familiar, 
to be sure, mostly because it happens to begin the play. In 
point of fact, that opening soliloquy : 

"Now is the winter of our discontent 

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;" 

is not exactly a speech at all. It is rather a prologue, dis- 
guised only by the chance that it is spoken by one who is sub- 
sequently to take part in the play which it introduces. Thus 
it proves hardly more than a typical example of a convention 
familiar to the English stage long before that stage took ma- 
ture form. You Avill find the same sort of thing in moralities, 
in miracle plays, in mysteries. The only difference is that 
while you instantly recognize the conventional character of the 
older work, you somehow feel that the lines spoken by Richard 
are spoken by somebody, and that his determination to be a 
villain is something more than a mere prelimiinary statement 
of what he is going to do in the scenes which follow. Then 
take what presently follows : Richard 's meeting with the Duke 
of Clarence, arrested, and on his way to the Tower from which 
he is never to emerge. Offhand you would think that nothing 
could be more preposterously absurd than such a casual inter- 
view, in what the stage directions generally accepted during 
the last two centuries profess to be a public street. If inythiug 
could be more preposterous, you might think it the immediately 
ensuing street talk with Lord Hastings. But both of tliese pre- 
posterous incidents fade into something like the light of com- 
mon day beside what comes next — the blazing absurdity of 
Gloucester's street courtship with the widowed Princess of 
"Wales over the coffin of her roj^al father-in-law, lately mur- 
dered, like her husband, by the hand of the wooer. And so 
you may read on, through scene after scene, act after act; 
none conceivably actual, until the puppet ghosts on the eve oE 
Bosworth Field, though their utterances may frighten the King— 



36 University of Texas Bulletin 

conscience stricken at last — seem each time you recur to their 
lines, more and more unimaginably remote from anything act- 
ually supernatural. 

From beginning to end, indeed, the play of Richard III, as 
we have it, is presented in terms as far from actuality as ever 
were the terms of the primal tragedy of Greece. While through- 
out the conventions of that primal tragedy, however, there is a 
vast splendor of conception, this English chronicle history seems 
in every conventional aspect a thing poor enough to deserve 
all the strictures which Sidney put upon such absurdities less 
than ten years before this familiar example of them came to the 
light. Yet one cannot too wonderingly repeat that despite these 
archaic means of its presentation the character of Richard cer- 
tainly seemed living to the audiences for whom it was written ; 
that it has stayed living for countless readers and auditors 
through the generations since ; and that, read it often as you will, 
it seems so even to us of the twentieth century. Monstrous 
though he be as a conception, uninterruptedly conventional though 
every syllable of the setting forth of him be, presented from begin- 
ning to end with hardly a touch of what we may call living actu- 
ality, Shakespeare's Richard III stays human. You may call 
him monstrous as long as breath lasts. You may assert, if you 
like, that human will, however brilliantly incarnate, cannot so 
master the stops of human nature and govern the ventages of 
time as to fulfill its purposes by mere dint of unfaltering de- 
termination. Even while you are thus decrying him, you will 
find that you are thinking about him not as a creature of imag- 
ination, or of fiction, but just as if this Richard had been the 
Richard who lived and breathed and died in his fifteenth century 
flesh. Beyond peradventure, the Richard of English tradition is 
not the Richard of recorded history, nor the Richard of Hblin- 
shed or of Sir Thomas More. It is this diabolical but still human 
being brought into undying existence by the genius which wa3 
Shakespeare's and Shakespeare's alone. 

The chronology of Shakespeare, though nowise definite, is at 
least so well made out that, as we have reminded ourselves 
before, this play of Richard III may confidently be put among 
the earlier. It was probably reduced to its present form some- 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 37 

where about 1593. Partly from the very fact that it so fully 
embodies the conditions amid which he began to work, the play 
may be taken as an example of what the Shakespearean touch 
could do in the earliest days of its mastery. Some fifteen years 
later, probably about 1606, this same Shakespeare who had mean- 
while produced most, of the comedies, histories, and tragedies 
alike now recognized as his masterpieces, \^TOte another 
play even more familiar to modern readers- and theatre-goers 
than Richard III. This, often supposed to be the latest wi'itten 
of his four principal tragedies, is Macbeili. Just as you may take 
RicJiard III for an example of the state of the drama when his 
power began to show itself, so you may take Macbeth as an ex- 
ample of the kind of work which he did when the drama was 
fully developed, when his poAver was still at its height, but when 
his production was drawing to a close. 

It is hardly excessive to say that the contrast between the two 
plays thus put side l)y side is as great as the contrast between 
either of them and soilic work of modern times. They have 
in common, no doubt, charactoristios which belong to the English 
and to the English theatre of their day, as distinguished from 
any other. Roth, when you study them, prove adapted to the 
stage conditions of their time rather than of ours, and one of 
the miracles about both is that they can survive translation from 
the day-light platform of an unroofed London pit to the recesses 
of embossed prosceniums and the glow of graduated electric 
lights which happen to be properties of our modern theatres. 
But, putting aside what common traits these two plays possess, 
take, to illustrate the difference between them, the most obvious 
passage in each, namely, the opening lines. In Richard III, as 
we have already reminded ourselves, the Duke of Gloucester 
walks out on the stage alone and delivers in sonorous phrase that 
familiar soliloquy which avows his villainy and states his pur- 
poses. A dramatic convention, perhaps, and therefore conven- 
tionally tolerable, this incident is one that could never possibly 
have occurred. What is more, while it tells the audience pretty 
clearly what they may expect, it does not so touch their emotions 
as to lure them into any particular mood. Now compare with this 
the opening scene of Macbeth, which, by the way, has only 



38 University of Tex^as Bulletin 

twelve lines as against forty-one in the soliloquy of Richrird. The 
three witches, at the end of some unholy sacrament, whirlingly 
part — to meet again, when the hurly-burly is done and the battle 
lost and won. We may tell ourselves, if we like, that there are no 
such things as witches. We may tell ourselves, too, that no beings, 
human, or divine, or diabolical either, ever actually communi- 
cated with each other in madly tripping trochaic rhymes. But 
nobody can deny that if there ever had been such things as 
witches, this is the how we might have expected them to behave. 
Then take the scene where they reappear, weaving together the 
spell which is to enchant Macbeth. More and more you feel that 
even though the words they utter have the pregnant aptitude 
and the superhuman rhythm of poetry, the thoughts and the 
moods which these words embody, the conduct and the character 
which these words set forth, are such things as, if witches were 
real, witches would think and witches would do and be. To them 
enter the victorious chiefs, Macbeth and Banquo. The scene, as a 
familiar line in it reminds us, is on a blasted heath in the midst 
of a Scottish tempest. If such things as witches could be, and if 
such things as the work of them could be wrought, this is just 
where and how their devilish wiles would be most likely to 
bewilder and enmesh human victims. We need not admit even 
to ourselves that such things as this could possibly take place 
anywhere else than in poetry. No one can deny that if they 
could take place, they might take place just so. 

In the play of Macbeth, this scene between the witches and 
the generals whose fates they doom has exactly the same place 
as is taken in the play of Richard III by that preposterous woo- 
ing of the Princess Anne in London streets over the bier of the 
murdered Henry. What is true in the contrast between these 
opening scenes of the twa plays remains true throughout. As a 
matter of actual incident, the literal story of Richard III is gen- 
erally a good deal more probable, a good deal nearer what misrht 
occur in real life, than is the literal story of Macbeth. But com- 
pare, if you will, the rhetorically prolonged murder of the Dnke 
of Clarence with the appallingly compact murder of the sleeping 
Duncan. Then read, if you will, the interview betv/een the 
anointed King Richard, surrounded by his train with all their 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 39 

drums and their trumpets, and his wrathful mother and the 
widowed queen of his brother Edward. Compare this theatrically 
effective but actually unimaginable incident with the scene of the 
banquet, where Macbeth trembles before the gory locks of the 
murdered Banquo, invisible to all but himself. Compare again 
that ghostly visitant in his awful silence with the loquacious pup- 
pets that vex the last moments of earthly sleep granted to doomed 
King Richard. So far as mere language goes, the one, you may 
say, is as far from literal as the other. But granting the superb 
license of phrase which is the outward and audible body of 
poetry, you cannot but feel more and more that except for the 
splendor of their phrasing the incidents in Macbeth might ac- 
tually have occurred and that what happens in Ricliard III 
could not pos.sibly have happened anywhere but on the stage. 

This is one reason why Macheth is so much more effective as 
a stage play. Another reason, though harder to specify in detail, 
must grow evident to whoever reads. One fact which you may 
fe-el rather than point out in all the historical plays of Shake- 
speare is a sense of surging historic force. The days which suc- 
ceed on the days, and the years which succeed on the 3'cars, and 
the generations which succeed on the generations breed, each 
of them, we know not how, the days, the years and the genera- 
tions to come, wherein, dominant or not, no man can finally pre- 
vail. This surge of history you can feel even in Henry VI, and 
still more in Richard III. Now compare this with what you feel in 
M\acl)eth; the surge is no longer only that of .history, it has be- 
come the surge of fate. Whence man comes, he knows not, nor 
whither he goes. All he can tell is that amidst the storm of force 
which sweeps him on, he is conscious, he reacts, and he now and 
again does things which help toward the end whither something 
else than he is wliirling everything. In Macheth, perhaps more 
than in other drama since the great tragedies of Greece, you 
feel this resistless fate, the evil phase of it flickeringly incar- 
nate in the witches, until the human victims of it — themselves 
all individual, all distinct, all, like the circumstances which en- 
viron them, almost actual — finally group themselves much as 
human beings group themselves be-fore our eyes throughout the 
daily experiences of our own earthly passage. 



40 University of Texas Bulletin 

So it is only after a good while that you begin to feel emerging 
from the sweep of fate in this tragedy and from the commingled 
human victims thereof one supremely distinct individual — the 
protagonist, Macbeth himself. As we remember the play, indeed, 
or as we grow to know it better, he stands forth in no such 
theatrical isolation as that in which we perceive the character of 
Eichard III ; he stands forth rather in some such manner as that 
in which amid the confusion of human actuality we somehow 
grow to discern and to know one man apart from his fellows. 
It is not that the play of Macbeth, any more than any other 
work of poetic art, is set forth without regard for literary con- 
ventions. The scenes, the speeches, the words, the thoughts, are 
no more literal than such things were in Shakespeare's earlier 
work. But the conception, for all its heroic grandeur, has such 
true relation to life that just as one thinks of Richard — for all 
his individuality^as a great figure of the stage, so — for all his 
measureless dramatic aspects — one thinks of Macbeth as if he 
were human — a man grandly tempted, diabolically enmeshed, 
accursed, damned in the very flesh before the gates ot hell are 
opened to receive him, and yet, for all that, so deeply our brother 
man that in recognizing him as man, one hardly realizes the 
fact that, like Richard himself, he is a royal villain. 

Yet such he is, beyond all manner of doubt. Like Richard, 
Macbeth first appears not as a sovereign, but as a subject. Like- 
Richard, he deliberately clears from his way all who stand be- 
tween him and the throne. Like Richard, he strides before us 
crowned and anointed. The chief difference between them in this 
aspect is that while Richard's villainy is instigated by his own 
evil nature, the villainy of Macbeth is instigated by evil powers 
beyond his control, though not needfully beyond his power of re- 
sistance. It may be that Macbeth is victim ; yet as a victim, even 
though sometimes hesitant, he is not unwilling. Apart from the 
fact that we may sometimes sympathize with him, when we thinlv 
of him as the sport of fate, Macbeth is a murderer, a usurper, 
such a miracle of broken faith as should shame Carthage or 
Kaiser, royal at last only in the dignity of soldierly courage, 
rightly laid low by the hand of a wild justice which must do its 
relentless work before it can stop to submit itself to the condi- 
tions and limitations of established and beneficent law. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 41 

Yet established law is the triumphant end towards which the 
whole tragedy tends. The last lines of the play, rhyming tags 
though they be, are spoken by the sovereign who is to be crowned 
at Scone to succeed the criminal usurper, and to replace his 
murderous tyranny by a system of beneficent rule. The words 
have a certain resemblance to the words which occupy a. similar 
place in Riclutrd HI. There the victorious Richmond makes a 
rather long set speech, ended, too, with rhyming tags, and pro- 
phesying how 

' ' peace lives again : 
That she may long live here, God say Amen!" 

In that case, the political intention of the speech is evident. The 
speaker is the founder of that native Tudor dynasty under which, 
when the play was written, England had enjoyed a century of 
something more like peace than had occurred there before since 
the dethronement of King Richard II. Kichard III, in fact, is 
regularly classed as one of Shakespeare's histories, and though 
written earlier than those which deal with Richard II, Henry IV 
and Henry V, it really concludes the long historical story which 
these begin. So, in a way, those last words of it are like the 
playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" at the end of some 
patriotic performance which should celebrate the tyrannies of 
momentarily Germanized Hanoverian England and the purity of 
the ends achieved by the American Revolution. The peace to live 
again when the tyrant Richard was overthrown was the bene- 
ficent rule of the Tudors, still on the throne when that old play 
was written. 

Offhand, the resemblance between that final speech of Rich- 
mond and the final speech of Malcolm in Macbeth msij well seem 
accidental, hardly more than the repetition of a device needful 
under the theatrical circumstances of the time to get a consid- 
erable number of characters off the stage with a dead body on 
their hands. "When we stop to think, however, of what the pro- 
jected coronation at Scone signifies, and of who Malcolm was; 
when we remember the fantastic procession of crowned appari- 
tions passing one by one in the witches ' cave before the desperate 



42 University of Texas Bulletin 

eyes of Macbeth ; when we remember how the eighth' and last of 
them holds a glass wherein are reflected the images of count- 
less such kings to follow, some of them bearing two-fold 
balls and treble sceptres; when we remember that the ghost of 
Banquo points at these foreshadowed royalties, as those of whom 
the witches have prophesied that even though no king himself, he 
should beget kings, we can begin to feel a deeper resemblance be- 
tween these two final passages . than at first appeared. In point 
of fact, the death of the usurping Macbeth cleared the throne for 
another line than his own, just as the death of the usurping 
Richard cleared the royal path for the Tudors ; and the dynasty 
for which the death of Macbeth cleared the way was that which 
succeeded the Tudors on the throne of England. When Macbeth 
was written, Queen Elizabeth was dead. Her kinsman, King 
James I, had ascended the throne, and her kingdom, after its 
crescent century and more of native Tudor rule had passed 
peacefully into the foreign hands of the Scottish Stuarts. 

As a matter of history, no doubt, the story of Bichard III 
comes fairly near the facts; and at the time when the play was 
written, these facts were less remote in time than the American 
Revolution is from us. In comparison, the story of Macbeth, 
placed in the long vanished days of King Edward the Confessor, 
and suffused with supernatural incident, seems legendary, and 
must have seemed so even in Shakespeare's time. None the less 
there is one clear fact about it : this almost antique Macbeth 
bore to the ancestry of the house of Stuart some such relation as 
was borne to the house of Tudor by the last sovereign of the 
house of York. What is more, when students of Shakespeare 
begin to consider where the stories of the two plays come from, 
they will find the sources of Richard III and of Macbeth to be 
substantially the same. Both plays are taken from Holinshed's 
Chronicles, and Macbeth is taken, on the whole, with less de- 
parture from the original texts. . So far as the relation of sources 
to plays goes, there is hardly any difference between this stu- 
pendous tragedy of Shakespeare's later years and the com- 
paratively conventional history of his earlier. 

Once realize this, and a rather unexpected conclusion seems 
reasonable. What Shakespeare actually tried to do in both 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 43 

cases was to set forth, perhaps with old plays to help him, and 
certainly with easy reliance upon the Chronicles in which Eng- 
lish history was at the time most accessibly recorded, the story 
of how the beneficient dynasty which, in each case, happened 
to occupy the throne, had come gloriously to its right by heroic 
conquest of a wicked predecessor. It is hard to resist the belief 
that the writer of two plays so similar both in purpose and in 
relation to their sources could hardly have thought of them 
as very different in general character. Most likely, if Shakes- 
peare himself considered Richard III as a history he would 
unhesitatingly have considered Macbeth as a history too. To 
him the general character of the two plays must have seemed 
almost identical. 

No text of Macbeth exists before the folio of 1623 . and in 
that volume, of course, it was placed not among the histories, 
but among the tragedies. This classification, however, was un- 
doubtedly that of the editors, and not very careful. Indeed, 
they excluded from the group of histories all plays which did 
not have as the central figure a fully recognized predecessor 
of the actual sovereign of England. Jidius Caesar and Antony 
and Cleopatra, themselves as historical in character as anything 
which Shakespeare ever wrote, are thus classed as tragedies. 
So is the legendary King Lear. And Macbeth, like thp earlier 
Stuarts, was not an English sovereign, but a Scottish. This 
fact alone might have taken the play out of the group of his- 
tories. In calling Macbeth a tragedy, however, the first editors 
of Shakespeare nowise erred. No play in modern literature, 
and hardly any anywhere, more completely embodies that sense 
of resistless fate which animates the primal tragedy of Greece. 
The manner in which Shakespeare sets forth the appallingly 
tragic story, to be sure, is nowise classic. In certain stage de- 
tails, indeed, it is even less so than a casual reader nowadays 
might be disposed to think. Quite apart from the ribaldry and 
the topical allusions of the drunken porter, there are in Macbeth 
a good many pasages which, like the madness of Le-ar or of 
Hamlet, may originally have been performed in a manner so 
grotesque as to supply for the original audiences an element 
analogous to comedy, something at which they might laugh. 



4— s 



44 University of Texas Bulletin 

Yet we need not remind ourselves that all vestige of this gro- 
tesque phase of Macbeth has long since faded, not only from 
practice, but even from tradition itself. So any notion has 
faded that this tremendous surge of fate could ever for a mo- 
ment have been considered in the light of a presentation of 
actual history. Tragedy the story has truly become. Tragedy 
it will remain so long as literature survives. 

So long as our literature survives, too, Richard III will not 
be forgotten ; and tragedy though it be called on play-bills, 
it can never impress a reader or play-goer with anything ap- 
proaching the tragic sense which all must feel in Macbeth. In 
point of fact, however, as the considerations on which we have 
been dwelling should by this time lead us to perceive, the great 
contrast between these two plays, in themselves hardly fifteen 
years apart, is probably a question not of difference in purpose 
but mostly of the growth of the poet. 

His growth was nowise solitary. The fellow-poets who sur- 
rounded his earlier years, and who faded out of life long before 
his work was half done, wrote on the whole in the manner ex- 
emplified in Richard III. The younger poets, who began their 
work after the work of all but Shakespeare among their elders 
had come to an end, and who surrounded his later years of 
production, were more sophisticated; and by 1606 the general 
manner of English dramatists was far more like that of Macbetli. 
The extraordinary development of Shakespeare from his earlier 
work to his latest may therefore be held partly due to the 
accident that he lived and was at the height of his powers 
during just the years when the school of which his work forms 
part was most swiftly developing. But the man himself de- 
veloped, too, and wondrously. Even though to himself and 
to his time he may often have seemed little more than a highly 
skilled craftsman, even though he never disdained, or apparently 
tried much to modify, the theatrical conditions under which 
his plays were to be presented, even though, like all his fellows, 
he seems to have devoted the great part of his conscious energy 
to the making of phrases which should impress his hearers as 
novel, the great fact remains that the course of his production 
shows, at least from the period of Richard III to that of Macbeth, 



Memorial Volume to ^akespeare and Harney 45 

his constantly increasing mastery of imaginative truth. Apart 
from everything else, apart from the compact intensity 
and pregnancy of his later style as compared with his earlier, 
apart from the fact that in neither case — nor in any other 
throughout his work — does his style descend to vulgar actuality, 
apart from his contented acceptance of theatrical conventions 
and conditions long outworn, there can be no question that in 
incident and in character Ricliard III, whatever its power, ap- 
pears artificial, and that Macbeth comparatively seems a part 
of Nature itself. Such was the growth of Shakespeare in the 
days of his pilgrimage, from craftsmanship to Art, from Art 
to Nature. 

It is now a full three hundred years since Shakespeare died. 
The lapse of time has made every convention of the theatre 
and of language to which we are now used measurelessly differ- 
ent from an>i"hino^ which he could ever have dreamed of. Yet 
the very fact that in these passing days multitudes are gather- 
ing together all over the English-speaking world to celebrate 
his memory proves that Shakespeare is not dead, but living. 
He is living, too, in a grandeur of immortality inconceivable 
to such human beings as three centuries ago may have known him 
in the flesh. Just as in the flesh he grew from the poet of 
Richard III to the poet of Macheth, so in the spirit he has 
grown from the hack playwright of Elizabethan London to the 
supreme poet of the language in which we still live out our 
conscious beings. 

The secret of that growth is what we all yearn to know. 
It is the search for that secret, perhaps, as much as mere rev- 
erence for the spirit which enshrines it, which is everywhere 
gathering together our tercentenary companies. The secret of 
poetry has never been snatched from the heart of it. Po- 
etry itself has never been imprisoned within the bonds 
of definition. But if there be one sure test of what makes 
poetry true, that test is a sense in the reader that the poet is 
marvellously and inexhaustibly his fellow in feeling. Your real 
poet is one who learns from life to perceive in the depths of 
its mysteries more than eyes less keen than his could ever 
begin to discern. He is one, as well, who somehow can express 



46 University of Texas Bulletin 

what he sees and what he feels in such manner that more and 
more of his fellow-beings can be guided by him to see and to 
feel that to which, without him, they would be blind and deaf. 
He is one, too, who feels, no one can tell how, the strange 
felicity with which the arbitrary terms and the almost for- 
tuitous rhythms of language can somehow be fitted to their task 
of meaning in a manner which all mankind must feel beautiful. 
At heart, the secret of poetry lies in feeling, in fellowship of 
feeling; and fellowship of feeling is just what is meant by the 
Greekish word "sympathy." 

What marks the difference most of all between Richard III 
and MachetJi is the marvellous growth in sympathy quivering 
throughout that final tragedy. What makes the marvel of the 
Shakespeare whom we venerate today is that the lapse of three 
centuries has proved his sympathy with humanity so perdurably 
wondrous in its fresh appeal to each succeeding generation that 
no change of earthly conditions has yet begun to dim its radiance. 



SHAKESPEARE, PURVEYOR TO THE PUBLIC 
By R. L. Batts 

I do not speak as a Shakespearean scholar. I know very little 
of what has been said of Shakespeare and his works. Whether 
most of the views I shall express are very commonplace or very 
heterodox, I do not know. They are doubtless too conservative 
to be interesting, too crude to be useful, 

IM^y first laiowledge of Shakespeare came during the period 
that followed the horrors of the Civil War and the miseries of 
Reconstruction. It was a period of poverty in the South, and 
there was little money with which to put books into the homes. 
Among the books of my own home there was no juvenile except 
Shakespeare. With intense interest I read those universal 
stories that the great dramatist utilized and glorified — ignoring 
the unfamiliar words, but getting all the talc, and not failing 
to appreciate somewhat the beauty of thought and word that 
gave life and blood to the great men and lovable women created 
for me. 

While yet I was very young, Edwin Booth came to Texas, 
and at Galveston played greatly in ten great plays. Among 
these were Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, 
Richard, III, and Julius Caesar. Booth's TIamlet was the first 
play I ever saw. Since, I have read it many times; mnny times 
seen it played; many times seen plays almost as great; but once 
only have I been so deeply stirred by anything in art — when 
from sublime sound measures of I)as Rheingold, grandly crashed 
by a great orchestra, came liquid, vibrant, sweet, strong notes, 
and first I realized, in exquisite pain, the overwhelming majesty 
and beauty that may be in the human voice. 

Two or three years after this, my introduction to the drama, 
sometime I sat at the feet of a rare teacher of English who 
loved Shakespeare. Beauties new to me he pointed out, and 
I learned to find delights before unknown. My vision 
clearer, my view-point was unchanged. I have not greatly 
cared to read the things said about what Shakespeare wrote, 
M'hen I have been able to read the things he wrote, and some- 

[47] 



48 University of Texas Bulletin 

times privileged to see them interpreted by a master player. If 
I had read other than for the pleasure of the reading, doubtless 
a different would have been a better course. But I have been of 
the class for whom Shakespeare labored, and I have needed 
neither glossary nor commentator — the only equipment required 
a little ordinary intelligence, a little ordinary power of 
imagination, a little ordinary capacity for enjoyment. 

I am of those for whom he wrote. There are three hundred 
years of us. There are to be many centuries more. The critics, 
the scholars, the philosophers are to give way to us. We are to 
pass the final judgment on his work. Those who would usurp 
our function can not permanently maintain that the creatures 
of Shakespeare's intellect and imagination are for the learned 
alone. The assumption can not persist that there is more to be 
gained in the study of his unfamiliar words than in the enjoy- 
ment of his plays. Nor can it always be that his doubtful read- 
ings will receive more consideration than the imposing array of 
language which expresses all that is magnificent in thought. It 
is well that the various readings be given discriminating at- 
tention. The words he used and the manner of their use are 
amply worthy of study. The details of the life of the over- 
shadowing literary genius are, of course, most interesting. But 
after all, that which he wrote, — that which he expressed to the 
people for whom he wrote, — is the thing worth while, the thing 
most worth while in all literature. 

I think very many people of this period have been fright- 
ened into the assumption that Shakespeare's plays are an 
affectation of the "high brow," an occupation of the scholar. 
More than three hundred years ago they were written by a 
democrat for the public. By democrat I mean one capable 
of affiliating with all classes, one who gets pleasure from such 
association. By public I mean all who have the ordinary feel- 
ings, the standard emotions, the average intellects, the normal 
aspirations, the conventional hyprocrisies. Shakespeare's pub- 
lic included men of every grade of social standing, every level 
of intellectual endowment, every degree of mental training. 
This public understood and approved, enjoyed and rewarded. 
It provided a competency for his age. It accorded to his call- 



Memorial Volume to Shal-espeare and Harvey 49 

ing as an actor unaccustomed respectability. It encouraged 
into being his new profession of playwright. 

It would be humiliating to assume that in the years which 
have intervened there has been so serious a deterioration in the 
public intellect that that which interested and amused the peo- 
ple of the Elizabethan period can not now be understood. It 
may indeed be true that overindulgence in aenemic literature 
and decadent dramatic art has created a chronic intellectual 
lassitude that hesitates before a Shakespearean play as involving 
mental exertion — unnecessarj'', disagreeable, and unjustifiable 
mental exertion. But the infection of cerebral cessation is not 
universal, and neither excess of insipid literature nor plethora 
of plays from which thought has been expurgated has rendered 
obsolete the dramatic work of Shakespeare. 

Notwithstanding the play as "the abstract and brief chroniclft 
of the time" is usually, as a play, ephemeral; and notwithstand- 
ing the lapse of more than three hundred years, many of the 
dramas of Shakespeare are available for present use upon the 
current stage, as Hamlet, 3Iachetli, Julius Ca<:sar, The Merchant 
of Venice, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dri^am. Twelfth Night, 
The Taming of the Shrew, King Richard III, The Comedy of 
Errors, As You Like It. A great actor may anywhere in Amer- 
ica present Shakespeare to crowded houses, even in the great 
cities. Forbes Robertson may do so now, as Booth did in his 
day, and Irving. The mediocre may conjure with the mighty 
name and secure undeserved successes. 

It is doubtful if all the other playwrights together have 
during the years since Shakespeare began to write produced as 
many permanent plays, plays that may be read with pleasure and 
played with profit. No play of any English predecessor or 
contemporary survives as a practical play. His successors hav« 
contributed, She Stoops to Conquer, The Rivals, The School for 
Scandal, a few others perhaps that have long enough lived to 
bid for place among the plays that are permanent. Some of the 
plays of the present generation have literary merit; some have 
dramatic merit. I do not think of one combining these qual- 
ities. The works of Bernard Shaw are tempting to read, as 
unwholesome diet may be spiced to be as delightful as indi- 



50 University of Texas Bulletin 

gestible. But no one of his plays has relation to life as it is 
or has been. They are comedies aspiring to smartness— shams 
fired at shams. The play to be permanent must deal with per- 
manent things; with things that are common to all mankind; 
with the things that are a part of every human period; with 
things that all people and all peoples may understand. If 
there is to be smartness, it must be incidental. 

The plays of Shakespeare were not written for the cultured, 
nor for the learned, nor yet for the ignorant, or those lacking 
in culture, but for all men and women who have the normal 
faculties of men and women and the normal interest in men 
and women. They reached the understanding and met the re- 
quirements of the groundlings, not more nor less than of the 
class called better. It need not be argued that those who came 
to pay for the pleasure of the play understood the meaning 
of the player's words. Attendance was not on compulsion, not 
even the compulsion of public opinion. The play is subject 
to the supreme test, the inexorable test of success. It must 
amuse, interest, satisfy, or the play house must close. The 
plays of Shakespeare have stood this test of his own time and 
of the centuries since. For the test literary merit was essential, 
and very much more. 

For one thing, so great and so simple a result is beyond the 
power of any save a very human man. There are those who 
would invest Shakespeare with qualities no man may be given. 
There are those who would account him not more than an 
ignorant person who achieved a bad reputation and a mediocre 
competency. The latter are confined to the victims of the Bacon- 
ian theory, an amusing literary joke so cleverly conceived as 
to make " convertites " among every class of readers, except 
those who read Shakespea|re and Bacon. Those inclined to 
apotheosize the very great dramatist have among them poets and 
philosophers who can not separate the words of Shakespeare 
from the lofty thought structures these words have inspired. 
There are those who would invest him with a developing mysti- 
cism, an ever changing philosophy; one who from merry dal- 
liance with "such stuff as dreams are made on" passed to a 
dark and savage conception of life of which Caliban was the 
degraded exponent. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 51 

These ideas concerning Shakespeare, except when entirely with- 
out foundation, are based upon interpretation of language in 
his plays and poems; and must presuppose that his time was 
principally employed in carefully selecting words sufficiently 
enigmatic to require much time and study, but from which 
the very learned, if very persistent, might ultimately determine 
the profoundly mystic philosophy he had worked out during the 
very busy days of his very practical life. 

In some of the sonnets there are expressions hardly to be 
explained save on the assumption of a personal reference, and 
in the plays there are doubtless frequent expressions of per- 
sonal opinions, yet to undertake to determine his philosophy 
of life from the words he puts into the mouths of his characters 
would be to invest him with all that is noble and majestic and 
all that is mean and degraded. For his plays chronicle all 
crime, detail all follies, expound all ignoble thought, analyze all 
worthy action, express all that is honorable, dignified and noble. 
Take him for what he was, and no one shall look upon his like 
again, but this docs not warrant clothing him with the qualities 
he shaped into men to walk upon the stage. He did not for him- 
self exclaim : 

"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, 
Seem to me all the uses of this world!" 

If I should look for words of his own to describe him, these 
upon occasion, I would take : 

"But a merrier man, 
Within the limits of becoming mirth, 
I never spent an hour's talk withal; 
His eye begets occasion for his wit. 
For every object that the one doth catch 
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest. 
Which his. fair tongue, conceit's expositor. 
Delivers in such apt and gracious words 
That aged ears play truant at his tales 
And younger hearings are quite ravished, 
So sweet and voluble is his discourse." 



52 University of Texas Bulletin 

Yet, I would know it described only a phase of his many sided 
self. Be was not Hamlet, nor Brutus, nor Shylock, nor Falstaff. 
They are among the many creatures of his brain. Somewhat 
he gave of himself in their making; gave as the reader gives, 
but more; gave as the actor gives, but less. 

Shakespeare is among the very greatest men of earth, with 
Caesar. Mahomet and Napoleon. But he was very human, as 
were they. And that part of his work which was greatest was in- 
cident to the very human living of his life. That he has become 
the most important literary character of history obscures, but 
does not change, the fact that that which brought him immor- 
tality was done in the ordinary course of laborious and exacting 
business. The noblest thoughts that have been expressed since 
men have given thought expression were shaped into the noblest 
words that have been used since words have been in use, to 
supply amusement for a price, that for the price might live their 
author and the lowly workers at a scarcely tolerated trade. These 
labors in his business removed at length the restrictions of a 
binding poverty, and something of recognition of his talents 
brought general association with the mighty of the land, but 
his connection with the stage and his work as a practical play- 
wright continued, and to the time of his death immortal lit- 
erature was produced at the demand of material prosperity. 

It is not uninteresting to consider whether Shakespeare real- 
ized that in meeting the exactions of his business he was achiev- 
ing lasting literature. It may be he was not without some ap- 
preciation of the value and quality of his plays and yet without 
conception of the supremacy they would be accorded. 'Much 
of the strength of the language is born of a bold carelessness 
that could not have given much thought to the future. But 
there is not lacking evidence that he highly valued his poems. 
Possibly the plays, as part of his daily work, were unconsciously 
great, or greater than he knew, while the poems were a bid for 
reputation. With prosperity and improved social standing, 
probably came literary ambitions, seeking realization in poetry. 
Venus and Adonis, The Rape of lAicrece, and the sonnets rank 
high in English poetry, and entitle Shakespeare to stand with 
Chaucer, Milton, Spenser, and Tennyson. But if he had not, 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 53 

in the course of business, written greater poetry than these am- 
bitious efforts, fame would not have placed him among the 
great who have been of earth and given names to epochs in its 
history. 

"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme" 

expresses, I think, his own conception of the merits of his poems. 
And again : 

"Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read. 
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse, 
"When all the breathers of this world are dead; 
You still shall live— such virtue hath my pen — 
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men." 

Such virtue had his pen used in the ordinary course of busi- 
ness that these gentle verses have been saved from being im- 
mured and lost in the countless non-read volumes of the British 
poets. There is that in conscious, ordered, purposed poetry 
that doth depart from all the ordinary thoughts and acts of 
men. The metre, the rhyme, the dainty words expressing del- 
icate ideas or lofty feeling, have that of artificiality which rarely 
fits their daily doings. There are little bits of poetry that burn 
with passion; little bits, which sounding, soothe or stir; little 
bits that come into the universal life of men. But save as 
lyrics of human love or songs of Heavenly devotion, poetry is 
not an ordinary part of ordinary life ; it is something for poets 
to write, something for potential poets to enjoy. In its more 
usual forms, it rarely deals effectively save with the grandest 
or the most delicate of human actions. Many things men do 
neither very great nor very dainty but not lacking in virility 
and strong human interest. To these it is difficult to give ade- 
quate and satisfactory poetic expression, except in the dramatic 
form. Poetry as a form of expression for the drama, giving 
feeling and beauty to action, is its happiest use. And because of 



54 University of Texas Bulletin 

this use, and not because of his formal efforts at the art, Shakes- 
peare must be named the greatest poet. 

But the life work of Shakespeare as Shakespeare looked upon 
it was not poetry as Shakespeare looked upon it. His business 
was acting, conducting playhouses, and writing plays. He was 
ac)tively so engaged at the time when the modern business of 
furnishing amusement to the public was in its infancy. There 
is nothing to indicate that he achieved notable success as an 
actor. The time indeed was not long past when it was difficult 
to distinguish between the actor and the vagrant, and greatness 
seems not to have been predicated of the player's art. But 
Shakespeare was not lacking in knowledge of the art. In a 
paragraph he has summed it up : 

' ' Do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use 
all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, 
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temper- 
ance that may give it smoothness. ! it offends me to the soul 
to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tat- 
ters, to very rags. ... Be not too tame, neither, but let your 
own discretion be your tutor ; suit the action to the word, the 
word to the action; with this special observance that you o'er- 
fitep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is 
from the purpose of playing, whose end is to hold the mirror up 
to nature." 

This knowledge of the actor's art and his amply rewarded 
capacity as a theatrical manager are unimportant save as factors 
in his success &s a playwright. It was a part of the business 
of this man of greatest intellect to make himself understood 
by those of every grade of intellect, of this greatest poet to 
secure appreciation from those without conscious knowledge or 
love of poetry. There were things to be done Avhich he knew 
how to do — so well knew how to do, that nowhere in all his plays 
is there evidence of labored effort. 

So erroneous is the sometime conception of the equipment re- 
quired that it has been argued that the plays ascribed to Shakes- 
peare must have been written by one of better education. This 
involves two errors : that these great plays could be the product 
of education; and that Shakespeare was lacking in education. 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 55 

Foolish things are said of education. It is a satisfactory sub- 
stitute for many little things, many important little things. It 
can not take the place of a single essential thing. It is a skill- 
ful hand, a useful tool, a lubricant, a paint to cover defects. 
If education were greatness, or could breed it, Shakespeares 
would be plenty as blackberries. That which made immortal 
the plays of Shakespeare was genius and learning, wisdom, 
experience, necessity, labor. No education could have given 
the genius; it is from the Source of Power that put the suns 
in motion and keeps the stars in their courses. It was not with- 
out dependence on these lesser forces, these forces that are edu- 
cation; learning, that brought to his aid nature's legal code; 
wisdom, that lit up for him the obscure places of the human 
heart and intellect ; experience, efficient guard against error ; 
necessity, persistent prod to labor; labor, the curse with which 
God blessed mankind. 

But Shakespeare did not lack even the inadequate education 
of the schools. A1 the Grammar School at Stratford was laid the 
foundation for all the learning to be had from books. If the 
diffused instruction of the schools of our time may be best 
measured in the sum total of valuable results, it is not the best 
for those who are potential scholars and thinkers. The teaching 
of Shakespeare's day was concentrated. From the standpoint 
of the erudite scholar of that day, Shakespeare had "little Latin 
and less Greek," but he had as much as the average university 
graduate of today. And he had enough for his needs. The 
ending of his short school career did not conclude his acquisi- 
tions from the books. With the advantage that a few only 
were available, he read and appropriated. And thus he acquired 
the necessary history, the essential poetry, the fundamental 
fiction. 

While much has been said about his lack of education, there 
has been as much comment upon the astonishing scope of his 
learning. The one involves a conclusion not more accurate than 
the other. A comprehensive knowledge of the law is ascribed 
to him, and wonder is expressed at his learning in medicine, 
agriculture, mechanics, natural history — in nearly everything 
else. As to the law, he may have known a great deal. There 



56 University of Texas Bulletin 

is nothing in his plays or poems to indicate it. He utilized, 
principally for puns, legal phrases and terms, as "fine," "re- 
covery," "fee," which must have been in very general use 
in his day. In one instance, in the grave-diggers scene in 
Hamlet, he evidences familiarity with a contemporaneous legal 
decision. This indicates nothing further than that with the 
limited literature then accessible those with whom he associated 
found more time than can now be commanded to laugh at the 
absurdities of the administration of the law, though it is per- 
haps now a much more fertile field for laughter. For the law 
solemnly reveres, tenderly preserves, and laboriously catalogues 
its absurdities. The Court had gravely considered and learn- 
edly argued whether a person suffered death before he com- 
mitted suicide or committed suicide before his death. Shakes- 
peare egotistically assumed that he could caricature the case. 
Most of the legal expressions used by Shakespeare are from the 
law of realty. He indulged in enough litigation to have learned 
them. The expense of the acquisition explained, if it did not 
justify, the effort to make the knowledge useful by making it 
amusing. 

His references to other sciences show the intelligent familiarity 
every intelligent man must have with the things going on around 
him and constituting the labors and studies of the intelligent 
men with whom he comes in contact. He had a sufficient knowl- 
edge of Latin, French and Spanish, Italian and Greek, Law and 
Agriculture, Astronomy, Physics, History and Mythology to 
serve the purposes of a playwright undertaking to serve a pub- 
lic that knew not nearly so much. He could doubtless have got 
along on less ; and he would doubtless have had the good sense 
not to have burdened his plays and his poems with pedantry 
if he had had the scholarship of Bacon or Selden. 

Shakespeare's appropriation from the books by no means mea- 
sures the accretions to his knowledge. That which he acquired 
was not "lean and wasteful learning"; that which came to him 
made the foundation of wisdom. His business was to purvey to 
all the public, and it was necessary that he know their needs. 
Or at least their wishes. He had the requisite versatility. No 
doubt your Shakespearean scholar could, by ample quotations, 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 57 

prove him servile to the great ; prove that always he would 

"Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift might follow fawning." 

But so you eould prove him anything. Undoubtedly he ca- 
tered also to the great, and by no means would have offended 
those of his patrons by a failure to render unto Caesar the 
things that Caesar thinks he ought to have. And thus also he 
made available for professional uses the manners and habits 
of thought aft'cctcd or indulged by those of noble birth and 
high position. He flattered and pleased the great, and pleased 
not less the lowly who revered them and the ambitious w^ho 
envied. 

So also contributed to his wisdom the low associations and un- 
restrained conduct of his early days and the more conventional 
immoralities of his maturer years. His youthful blood ran riot- 
ous. He did that which was criminal, and that which was im- 
moral, and that which was foolish. For his crime of poaching he 
compensated the injured by conferring lasting fame through 
immortal doggerel. Tradition says he was a member of a drink- 
ing team that engaged in championship bouts with ambitious 
herds from neighboring villages. That he was guilty of graver 
indiscretions rests upon safer ground than tradition. That the 
rising spirit of Puritanism affected him little his writings and 
his deeds attest. 

The recorded lives of men cover a very great period and the 
overlapping generations have accumulated and transmitted vast 
stores of statements, thoughts, facts, conjectures. But though 
man has been the most important and the most assiduous study 
of mankind, aijid though learned essayists and wise dramatists 
may cast up the general average of human conduct and motive, 
no man can most effectively teach save as he has seen and felt 
and done. No man can in his own proper self feel all the emo- 
tions men may feel — live all there is in all lives. But who lives 
intensely the little span, who lives freely the little span, who 
lives boldly the little span, is wise, though it may be he has not 
wisely lived. If he is brave enough and honest enough and 



58 ' University of Texas Bulletin 

not lacking in memory and the power of thought, he will have 
within him that worth while for his fellows to know. And if he 
has capacity for expression, measuring that to be told, he will 
be an ample pool of pleasure, from which a stream of wisdom 
flows. 

There are, it may be, things abstractly right and things ab- 
stractly wrong. For good and evil are measured by what is 
wholesome or harmful to the human body and the things of 
the soul which timely abide with the body. But ordinarily 
ethical questions can not be determined without considering 
something more personal than abstractions, and every man is 
entitled to the alleviating defense that he should not be ex- 
pected to be markedly better than the period in which he lives. 
And whether he be better or worse than his time or ours, we 
are not forbidden to profit by the teachings of the wicked, nor 
should the sinner be denied the atonement of a universal service 
through giving a universal pleasure. 

My thesis is that Shakespeare save in being a genius w^as not 
different from the ordinary run of men. I do not therefore 
defend him against charges of vice, immorality, folly. If 
Heaven has pardoned his sins, we should not hesitate to forgive 
his follies. For out of the bold waywardness of youth and the 
discreter deviations of advancing years came first-hand knowl^ 
edge of yearnings, ambitions, temptations, weaknesses, emotions 
that are the mainspring of action. "With all his power of imagi- 
nation, of assimilation, of quick perception, of universal appro- 
priation, he could not have been the greatest of poets and dra- 
matists w^ithout these fundamental experiences, this personal 
knowledge of fundamental emotions, mthout this wisdom born 
of folly. 

There is much poetry lacking life that nathless I love, — 
for. its musical numbers, for its well-chosen words. Yet I know 
it factitious, its numbers made musical by slow and labored 
processes, by additions, eliminations, substitutions. There are 
in Shakespeare thngs hot from the heart, words not the pro- 
geny of words, but born of ecstacies or things deeply suffered. 
And always he speaks as one who knows. 

By the standards ordinarily used to test human knowledge. 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 59 

he was neither ignorant nor erudite. He knew enough to amuse 
and instruct. And he knew how to amuse and instruct both 
the ignorant and the erudite. One of the present day not 
learned of books might consider, detached from the text, the 
unfamiliar words of Shakespeare, and assume that he had writ- 
ten alone for scholars. No such impression could arise from 
an unalarmed reading of the whole. Probably he used words 
that were not understood by all the playgoers of his day. It 
is not unusual for intelligent and even educated people of our 
time to be compelled to resort to the dictionary for the meaning 
of words used in public discourses and current literature. So 
it must have been then. And so it especially must have been 
in reading or hearing the words of one whose wealth of words 
was unapproachably marvelous. He used all the words of his 
day that were usable in literature, and more. He gave new mean- 
ings to old words, made new verbs of old nouns, ventured some- 
times to make new words. The thing to cause astonishment is 
not that he should have words unfamiliar to twentieth century 
readers, but that the number is not vastly greater. 

So nearly is the language the language of today as to suggest 
that his plays are entitled to divide with the King James trans- 
lation of the Bible credit for fixing English speech. Many of 
the phrases and expressions have been adopted into the common 
language of the people, and many more are so freely used by 
the cultured that acknowledgment of source is unnecessary. 
Note the following from a single play : 

"The time is out of joint." "Something is rotten in the 
State of Denmark." "The glass of fashion and the mould 
of form." "The primrose path of dalliance." "When we have 
shuffled off this mortal coil." "A custom more honored in the 
breach than the observance." 

Probably some of the graphic expressions which may be quoted 
from his plays, and which are now in common use are not of 
his own creation, but were discriminatingly adopted from the 
spoken language of his OAvn day. Possibly he neither phrased, 
nor preserved, but merely used as the generations have used 
"eaten out of house and home," "dead as a door nail," "stiff 
and stark." Now and then are found words, as "holp" and 



5— S 



60 University of Texas Bulletin 

".mighty" and "fetch" that have disappeared from current 
written language, and survive only in the rustic speech. 

The erratic training of his boyhood, the untamed doings of 
his youth, his early venture into tardy matrimony, the hard- 
ships of his first years in London, his experiences as an actor, his 
induction into the social life of the metropolis, all these fitted 
him for his life's work and made it possible for his genius to 
attain immortal results. That which he essayed was so to por- 
tray all the phases of life as to make the portrayal interesting 
to all who live any of the phases of life.' And he did not fail. 

In the making of his plays he used the oft-repeated stories, 
the constantly recurring incidents of history, the primary trage- 
dies and comedies in life that are very new and very old to every 
generation. Concentrating all his gorgeous splendor of imagina- 
tion, all his facile power of words, he builded upon the old 
standard frame works of story and brought forth that of com- 
pelling majesty or exquisite beauty. Those who hear need not 
bear the burden of the unfamiliar, but may know a developing 
delight like the pleasure' born of a recurring strain of dainty 
melody. So rare his vision, he could see the obvious. From 
things plainly to be seen and seldom seen were shaped "wise saws 
and modern instances." So patent the thought, so apt the 
words, they seem the reader's own. And thus he is flattered, 
and flattered, pleased. Except in a few comedies where farcical 
situations were the occasion for riotous fun, the incidents por- 
trayed were such as easily and naturally . arise. Save as the 
playwright to meet mechanical requirements and to aid and 
excite the imagination introduced the familiar ghosts and fairies 
of his day, the plays were free from psychological or other prob- 
lems and all manner of mystery or mysticism. At least if they 
were not absent, there was always an easy interpretation that 
excluded them; and every play-goer that chose mental relaxation 
rather than mental exercise was without trouble in ignoring the 
subtler intellectual phases of Shakespeare's art. In every play 
there was a perfectly easily understood tale entirely interesting 
in itself, and so developed as to retain and increase the interest. 
He used no tricks. Evidently he saw no merit in a development 
that brought suspense and surprise. There is an increasing 



Memorial Volume to Sliakes'pcare and Harvey 61 

pleasure in watcliing the unfolding of a drama and contemplat- 
ing and forecasting tlie logical result that can be little compen- 
sated for by the momentary thrill of an- unforeseen conclusion. 
Or, at all events, if this is not true of those who are mentally 
very alert, and whose pleasures come largely from a gratifying 
consideration of their mental agility, it is true of the masses 
of mankind who see plays for simple amusement rather than 
intellectual exercise. 

The humorous and amusing element was introduced in all but 
three or four of the plays. So it is in life, and so it should 
be when the mirror is held up to nature. Few tragedies escape 
their comic incidents. And if life be very sombre, all the more 
reason for sunshine and the relieving smile. Practically, too, 
this playwright, this very capable business man, realized that 
people better love to pay for the sweet experiences of pain when 
a little punctuated with a pleasing mirth. Besides, with all his 
good sense, good .iudgment, with all his ma.jesty of imagination, 
all his majesty of language, could he not have said of himself: 

"This is a gift that I have simple, simple; a foolish extrava- 
gant spirit full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, appre- 
hensions, motives, revolutions; these are begot in the ventricle 
of the memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and de- 
livered upon the mellowing of occasion"? (Pre-Wliitman,, mak- 
ing sense the first reading.) 

None knew better than Shakespeare that: 

''A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 
Of him that makes it." 

Unhappy the man unable to awake to the port and nimble 
spirit of mirth, whose nature precludes enjoyment of the jester's 
innocent efforts to season life, or whose culture bears a facultj'' 
ao critical that the quips and quirks, born to bring a smile and 
be forgot, lose power and their cunning in his presence. The 
most of Shakespeare's public, as the most of the public today, 
have pleasure from the labors of these "corrupters of words." 
A "wit peddler who retailed his wares," for his own practical 



62 University of Texas Bulletin 

purposes, and for the "world's pleasure and increase of laugh- 
ter," he furnished all the different types of wit and humor 
which have since his day been essayed. Perhaps he found them 
in use and did nothing except produce acceptable specimens; 
perhaps they have always been in use — a part of the equipment 
for life. 

Much of all wit and humor is malicious or malodorous. And 
so of Shakespeare's. He indulged in horseplay which passed 
for comedy and coarse allusions which went for wit. But also 
he had a wit that was concentrated wisdom. And most of all a 
wit that is finest of all, smile-provoking rather than laughter- 
compelling. 

''This passion and the death of a dear friend would go near 
to make a man look sad. ' ' 

The wise and steel-tongued Portia comments : 

"God made him, therefore let him pass for a man." 

The delightful Portia says: 

"I dote on his very absence." 

And these among many: "I have a good eye. Uncle — 
I can see a church by daylight." "In the managing of quarrels 
you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with good 
discretion, or undertakes them with most Christian-like fear." 

He speaks of "voluble delay in telling"; and illustrates: 
' ' He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the 
staple of his argument." 

"If ladies be but young and fair. 
They have the gift to know it. ' ' 

' ' A coward, a devout coward, religious in it. ' ' 

Half the lines of As You Like It illustrate this delightful 
quality. 

Shakespeare indulged constantly in puns. There is a dis- 
position in those lacking capacity to make them to speak of puns 
as the lowest form of wit. The criticism lacks discrimination. 
A pun may be very witty, or not very witty, or not witty at all. 
The puns of the latter class are in large majority; and if the 
observation were confined to those of Shakespeare, it would 



Memorial Volume to SliaJcespeare and Harvey 63 

still be true. I am not, however, sure tliey were used unwisely. 
Fun is very easily provoked when people are waiting for and 
demanding it. Mere iteration reiterated may produce laughter. 
Current slang has often only the merit of repeated repetition. 
Some puns are witty at their first use, and all of them humorous 
seasoned to a sufficient staleness. 

If, however, in the building of plays for public use, Shakes- 
peare utilized these incidents of human nature, he realized that 
the gripping and enduring play must have more than wit, more 
than humor, more than beauty. While his business success was 
promoted by his humor, and while he has produced many gems 
of wit that are priceless, his lasting fame must depend prin- 
cipally upon the more substantial parts of the tragedies and 
histories. 

In these he dealt with the fundamental passions, the passions 
which touch the lives of all men and. women. Love and lust, 
hatred, ambition, avarice, revenge, remorse, — all these he painted 
with bold broad strokes in crude colors, never crudely. But 
not always he so painted, for there are dainty bits, delicate in 
detail, exquisite in color. These primary forces are portrayed 
in thoughts simple and direct, though ofttimes in glorious bursts 
and rolls of words. Hamlet is his creation, Hamlet a new man 
to every man at every view of him. Yet Shakespeare rarely 
essayed the subtle and complex, rarely shaped a character not 
within the easy range of every understanding. 

If he had written no plays except the Comedies, some of them 
would have survived : but they would have given fame to their 
author as a poet rather than as a playwright. A Midsumm.er 
Night's Dream is immortal because of the poet's power "to 
give to airy nothings a local habitation and a name"; because 
of his power 

"To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound," 

' ' clear 
As a morning rose newly washed with dew." 

There is all this and much more in the great tragedies which 
have brought him literary universality and immortality. Little 



64 University of Texas Bulletin 

flashes of genius are at many places to be found by those who 
''feed upon the dainties that are bred in a book." Byron has 
them, and Burns. Passages of Milton show genius or infinite 
pains. Then there are David and Dante and Job and Homer. 
And these do not complete the list of those whom Genius has 
pecked at. Shakespeare she "tapped on the shoulder"; nor 
sporadic nor exceptional were the manifestations. There are 
whole plays, as Hamlet and The Mercliant of Venice, in which 
every sentence proclaims this servitor of the people the favorite. 

No medium save the drama would have served. The pack of 
genius is a sufficient burden for genius. It cannot carry per- 
sonal ambitions, literary forms, conventional literary restrictions. 
In these plays, where the playwright made •the men and women 
of his intellect, of his experience and knowledge, do and say 
the things that men and women do and say, the artificial limita- 
tions and barriers are ignored or broken down. Thought is 
unrestrained. The expression of thought is unrestricted. The 
playwright puts into the mouth of his creature freedom and 
recklessness of speech. There is no occasion for anything to 
be haltingly stated, weighted with exceptions, pruned. For the 
man of the mind recklessness is not dangerous. 

The plays were written, moreover, to be played. If they had 
been written merely to be read, they would doubtless have had 
the artificiality, the wasteful and tiresome adherence to form that 
characterized Shakespeare's other poetry and most poetry. As 
plays, they have gracious, pleasing breaks, ellipses,, elisions, 
words not shaped into formal sentences, rough efficient carriers 
of thought, crude thought breeders. There is life, action — all 
the powerful, all the erratic motion of life. 

Shakespeare's practical knowledge of the actor's art doubtless 
furnished a training invaluable in the mechanism of his work, 
and enabled him within the limits of a page to fit and test all 
the parts crowded into its lines. Always, too, it enabled him to 
work with appreciation of the public's wishes, prejudices, and 
demands, and always with a knowledge of its limitations. These 
limitations did not so cabin, crib, and confine as to create em- 
barrassment, for Shakespeare realized that, outside the technical 
details of particular sciences, the man who understands the 



Memorial Volume to Sliahespeare and Harvey 65 

things he would understandingly express must rather fear his 
own poverty of appropriate words than mental lack in those who 
willingly listen. 

If Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature and his knowl- 
edge of his public contributed greatly to the greatness of his 
plays, they are responsible for some features which, if they 
cannot be kept out of life, can at least be advantageously 
eliminated from the stage. It is not to be expected of a dram- 
atist that he will disregard the conventions of his time, or 
fail to go as far as the conventions will permit. The Elizabethan 
period was not characterized by delicacy of speech. It recog- 
nized no reason why a spade should not be called a spade. 
There is no reason now. But there were reasons enough then, 
as now, why certain words should not have persistent and un- 
necessary public use. The drama and the book of our oa\ti day 
are not distinguished by delicacy of thought. There is not a 
thing so sacred, nor yet a thing so far from holy, that it can 
not be the subject of discussion in any character of company,, 
at any time, in any place. But if we lack in delicacy of thought. 
and modesty of conversation, there is a becoming daintiness; 
of words, a saving euphemistic linguistic hypocrisy. 

Shakespeare's knowledge of what some of his patrons wanted 
and what all of them would stand resulted in a very great 
deal of coarseness and even an ample excess of obscenity. But 
the value of Shakespeare's compendium of life incidents, life 
emotions, life's manners of doing would be greatly reduced 
if his audiences had been more modestly discriminating. It is 
quite possible that in many cases he could have developed the 
character intended without indulgence in boldness of obscenity, 
but those who have come into contact with many phases of life 
■will excuse much to have all the aspiring Falstaffs of the 
memory done into one character lacking not at all in complete- 
ness. And always he was purveying to the public. 

After all, the dramatist may not make men without giving 
them all the characteristics of men. Shakespeare peopled a 
little world. This little world of words was to be as the larger 
world of flesh and blood and deeds. He did not take a char- 
acteristic or an attribute, clothe it with adjectives, give it a 



66 University of Texas Bulletin 

name, and try to have it pass for a man. He invested the peo- 
ple of his plays with the ordinary incidents and characteristics 
of mankind, and emphasized some one or more of them as nature 
does for most men. He made men men could understand. Each 
human being has an individual conception of human nature.- 
These conceptions vary. Of a Shakespearean creation different 
men have widely different views. So they would of a man in 
the flesh. Created he men in the image of the men created in 
the image of God. 

He tilted with history. And won. The Caesar of the play 
has superseded the Caesar of history. Perhaps he was more 
nearly the Caesar of fact. And so of Coriolanus, Eichard III, 
Henry VIII, Brutus. The Macbeth of history is obscured by the 
mists of centuries; Shakespeare's Macbeth will not be forgot. 
Demosthenes was not so great an orator as Mark Antony. Ham- 
let is admitted among the intellectual of Earth, though alienists 
and psychologists raise question as to his complete sanity. Few 
names are so well known as Hamlet, Othello and Shylock. The 
gifted women of time do not rank with Portia, Miranda, Viola 
and Rosalind, and the rest of the brilliant group to whom 
Shakespeare has given, by words, being and beauty and intellect, 
chastity and all goodness and all things lovable in woman. 
Portia's masterly rescue of the Merchant of Venice is uncon- 
sciously used as an argument in favor of women entering the 
learned professions and the law. Highest achievement in the 
art of painting with words is the limning of Lady Macbeth. 
Delicately minute as a Velasquez, bold in action as a Detaille 
or a Miessonier, a picture of the savage love, the unselfish am- 
bition, the calculating cruelty, the fearsome courage, the fierce 
tenderness that may be woman. Savagely ambitious for the 
man she loved, Lady Macbeth screwed his courage to the stick- 
ing-place, and compelled with ruthless words the double crime 
.of murder and ingratitude: 

"I have given suck and know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: 
I would, while it was smiling in my face. 
Have pluck 'd my nipple from his boneless gums 
And dash'd the brains out." 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 67 

When the deep damnation of the bloody deed strikes terror tq 
the partner of her crime, she takes the dagger from his shaking 
hand, and makes it perjured witness to another's guilt. When 
the ghost of Banquo comes unbidden to the feast, she prays 
the guests be gone-, and with tender care and capable ministers 
to a mind diseased. Comes at last all this woman strength to 
woman weakness, to look upon the damned spot that will not 
out, to know that all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten the 
little hand. But always, through the brooding thought of crime, 
through the bloody deed of crime, through the fearful punish- 
ment, always a woman ! 

Not alone has Shakespeare put in mighty words the majesty 
of his imaginings; he has nurtured the men and women of his 
brain that they need no help from masters of the mimic art to 
take their place among those who live and move and have their 
being. The master playwright has made them, and given them 
immortality to add somewhat to the lives of each of us in the 
little time we tread upon the bosom of the Earth. 



RHYTHMIC ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH, WITH ILLUSTRA- 
TIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE 

By James W. Bright 

Dr. Purnivall once expressed to me his conviction that any 
interpretation of the principles of English versification brought 
forward as having been unduly neglected in .prosodic theory 
carries the Aveight of a strong presumption against it. He be- 
lieved the externalities of English versification to be for the most 
part indisputably simple; and as to whatever peculiarities may 
pertain to the established practice, these he thought had too 
long been competently studied to leave a margin for a reasonable 
suspicion that something of importance had escaped expert at- 
tention. In this judgment there is more than a moiety of truth. 
The essential simplicity of the external rules of the art cannot 
be denied. The uninstructed man is found writing good verses, 
that is, verses that are accurately measured and pleasingly 
rhythmic. When a Southey exercises himself in an indulgent 
estimation of uneducated poets, he will, like the self-styled 
"Lord Keeper of the King's taste," have little or no occasion 
to urge the prime necessity of knowing one's Bysshe. Self- 
taught poets seldom commit irregularities in verse-stress and 
rhythm. Nor will children instinctively accept lines that are 
faulty in cadence. They will recite their "rimes and jingles" 
in conformity to a strictly rhythmic pulsation, until they become 
bewildered, with advancing years, by the obtrusive and pe- 
dantic admonition to read poetry as nearly as possible as they 
would read prose. It is also true that of all the eifeets of 
stress and rhythm that may be comprehensively classed as pe- 
culiarities of English versification none can be declared to have 
escaped observation and comment. At this point Dr. Furnivall's 
conviction shades off into benevolent confidence in expert opin- 
ion. This would be satisfactory enough, if the disturbing fact 
could be ignored that expert opinion is at variance with itself, 
as is shown by the uninterrupted stream of articles, monographs, 
and books in which the principles of the art are variously ex- 
pounded. 

[68] 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 69 

According to the foregoing statement, therefore, there is much 
in the art of English versification that is unmistakably simple, 
bnt also much, or at least something, that is presumably so com- 
plex, or special, or subtle as to beget diversity of doctrine and 
its inevitable accompaniment, endless controversy. In this mat- 
ter there is, however, no variation from the rule that controversy 
is usually ardent and irreconcilable in direct ratio to the dif- 
ference between the points from which the subject is approached. 
To the same degree differences in convictions are kept alive by 
neglect of the initial requirement in a discussion, that of clear 
definition of the matter, to be considered, and close agreement 
as to the specific factors that are to be admitted into the problem. 
Moreover, not th? least hindrance to a closer agreement among 
students of versification has been a very general assumption that 
what, for eonvcnienco, have just now been designated the pe- 
culiarities of the English code are strictly so peculiar to English 
that the subjective judgments of a reader responsive to artistic 
effects are more trustworthy than technical evidence that may be 
cited from the wider region of rhythmic art. It is, of course, 
not to be denied that this subjectivity of the reader is of the 
highest value, but it may be invalidated by preconceptions, es- 
pecially by an attitude of mind that does not admit the im- 
portance of viewing the principles or conventions of the art in 
the light of the historic processes of its development, codification, 
and transmission. 

What then is simple in the making of an English verse? The 
question is answered with sul^cient completeness for the present 
purpose by pointing to the rhythmic character of a "regular 
line," a line in which all the verse-accents fall on primary word- 
accents of approximately equal weight. It is a common observa- 
tion that lines of this type do not (except for special effect) 
occur in extended and unbroken sequence. Usually some varia- 
tion of stress is employed to modify the monotonous beat on 
uniformly strong word-accents, and to secure thereby a pleas- 
ing variety in the melody of successive lines. A passage taken 
at random will illustrate the point : 



70 University of Texas Bulletin 

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended 
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. 
To mourn a mischief tliat is past and gone 
Is the next way to draw new mischief on. 
What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, 
Patience her injury a mocliery maltes. 
The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief; 
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. 

Othello I, iii, 202ff. 

This is a harmonious passage. The melody of each line is 
like that of every other line, and yet there is no instance in 
which two lines in strictness agree in having identically the 
same melody. The variations are slight but effective; and only 
the last line is, according to the preceding definition, absolutely 
' ' regular. ' ' 

Taking the last line as an exact notation of the "normal 
rhythm," and applying "routine scansion" to the other linea 
of the cited passage, a view is given of the means by which va- 
riation in line-melody has been produced. In the order of the 
lines, the last syllable of remedies receives a verse-stress ; seeing 
represents a "resolved stress" (the two syllables are combined 
under the stress; the first couplet has also feminine rime) ; that 
is stressed; 7s tlie next way represents perhaps a trochaic be- 
ginning; he is stressed; Patience her injury is either a trochaic 
beginning or (more probably) has a stress on the second sjdlable 
of Patience, and there is a stress on the final syllable of injury 
as contrasted with mockery, the last two syllables of which con- 
stitute a resolved thesis; in the seventh line, the preposition 
from is stressed. 

Let it be noticed now that the lines thus subjected to routine 
or "normal" scansion exhibit no device of stress that is peculiar 
to Shakespeare 's practice. They are rhythmically true to the 
principles of English versification from Chaucer to the present 
day. The faultless harmony and the pleasing diversity of mel- 
ody are just what the reader has always demanded and still 
demands of good poetry; and, if not unfortunately schooled 
into a fantastic notion of rhythm, the responsive reader must be 
believed to find artistic satisfaction in the scansion as described. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 71 

But, if it be admitted, as it must be, that the cited passage is 
sufficiently representative of Shakespeare's versification and yet 
represents no aspect of the art (within the limits here kept in 
mind) that distinguishes his practice from that of other English 
poets of whatever period, it becomes necessary at this point to 
give a view of the specific purpose of this discussion. In other 
words, if, in respect of externalities that determine mere scan- 
sion, Shakespeare's versification is indistinguishable from Eng- 
lish versification in general, it follows that a specifically Shake- 
spearian problem in this art must lie in details that are sub- 
ordinate to general principles. 

Subordinate details of a poet's versification have in many 
instances been minutely studied. In the ease of Shakespeare, 
his works as a whole and many plays taken separately have 
been scrutinized in this manner. A usual practice of editors of 
a single play is to find a place in an introduction or an appendix 
for an exhibition of the poet's mode of versifying in the par- 
ticular text, and additional references to the matter will be sup- 
plied in commentary or notes. This procedure is in itself good, 
for English poets employ the language at different periods of 
its history, and the fashion of word-accent (and consequently 
of verse-stress) has changed from period to period. 

«, 
Ye knowe eek, that in form of speech is chaunge 
With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho 
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge 
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so. 

It is also true that the works of some poets may with special 
profit be studied with reference to individual progress (or de- 
cline) in the art of versification; and viewed from this point 
Shakespeare's practice has been regarded as showing highly 
significant changes. But the specific purpose of this discussion 
is not to be concerned with any special characteristics of 
Shakespeare's art. It is merely to show, on the one hand, 
with the help of a few representative illustrations that his ver- 
sification is normal in respect of all that pertains to the un- 
broken tradition in the use of the rhythmic elements of the 
language; on the other hand, attention will be directed chiefly 



72 University of Texas Bulletin 

to the underlying necessity of understanding the character 
of the more important of these rhythmic elements. The discus- 
sion may be interpreted as an appeal to the readers of the poet 
to set aside all indoctrinated hindrances to an unbiased read- 
ing of his lines in accordance with the notation given in what 
has been called the "normal line," and to fit themselves for 
the correct reading of all the poets by historic inquiry into the 
character of the native system of accentuation and emphasis. 

Prosodists have been clever and industrious in devising hind- 
rances to a ready understanding of the rhythmic elements of the 
language, of the fundamental principles of English versification. 
Although these elements are easy of recognition, and these prin- 
ciples inherently simple and easily verified by the average reader. 
all has been not a little mystified by sophistications so as to 
persuade a large class of readers that it is hardly possible in 
the ease of this art to reduce principles and conventionalities 
to a simple and systematic grammar. 

A more or less close relationship unites many of the unwar- 
ranted tenets of prosodists, which just now have been described 
as hindrances in the way of correct progress in understanding 
the principles of English versification. Thus, when the rule 
is accepted to read poetry like prose, a wide and inviting margin 
for consequent theorizing is spread before the ingenious mind; 
and surprisingly fascinating questions arise to evoke replies 
that come to be valued for subtlety that is mistaken for sound- 
ness. If poetry is to be read like prose, let it be asked, why is 
it not written like prose? Bow can there be two methods of 
writing, but one only of reading? The questioning is artless, 
but the reply advances step by step in fineness of distinctions. 
It is replied that the difference in method of writing will show 
through the common method of reading; that the art of prose 
and that of verse will remain distinguishable. The interrela- 
tion of the two arts must now be defined, and the point is soon 
reached at which the rich suggestiveness of the subject gives it 
rank with those that, by common consent, will always keep con- 
troversy alive. 

To begin a series of brief comments on some aspects of this 
endless strife, attention may be directed to an article entitled 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 73 

' ' The Rhythmic Relation of Prose and Verse ( The Formn, May, 
1909). The writer, Mx. Brian Hooker, rests his contention in 
the following statement : ' ' Tennyson once said in reply to those 
who objected to the complexity of his verse: 'If they would 
only read it naturally, like Prose, it would all come right.' " 
And Mr. liooker concludes his article in full confidence that he 
has rightly understood the words of Tennyson. "It cannot be 
too strongly emphasized," he writes, "that the whole science of 
Prosody rests upon Tennyson's i)rinciple that English verse is 
to be scanned precisely as it is naturally read to bring out the 
sense." This conviction is finallj^ enforced by the concrete de- 
claration that ' ' The man who scans the opening line of Paradise 
Lost without stressing the word first will never learn any more 
{sic!) about verse. " 

Mr. Hooker has, indeed, in his own way, shown how funda- 
mentally important it is to test the rule to read poetry like prose ; 
but has he understood Tennyson's reply? "Would not the poet's 
quick perceptions have led him to discern in the singularity of an 
objection to "the complexity of his verse" readers that are for 
the most part superficially curious and perhaps rather pre- 
tentiously desirous to learn? With this class of objectors in 
mind, he could not have done otherwise than dismiss the sub- 
ject (whether graciously or not) with a class-room precept, 
which he believed could not do much harm. But whatever in- 
terpretation be read into Mr. Hooker's citation, it is to be re- 
membered that Mrs. Ritchie has reported how Tennyson himself 
read his lines: "Reading is it? One can hardly describe it. 
It is a sort of mystical incantation, a chant in which every 
note rises and falls and reverberates again. "^ Tennyson might 
have replied, ' sing the verse as it is written ' ; but that would 
have betrayed a lack of discernment of which he was incapable. 
He knew that many do not or can not sing well enough to suit 
his delicate cadences. As for Mr. Hooker's confident judgment 
with reference to the stress of the word first in the opening 



1 Annie Ritchie, Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning, 1893; 
quoted in An English Miscellany, presented to Dr. Furnivall in honour 
of his seventy-fifth birthday, Oxford, 1901, p. 27. 



74 University of Texas Bulletin 

line of Paradise Lost, that exposes a fault in singing that has 
come to be widely accepted as a \5irtue. 

The problem in hand is clearly indicated. It is assumed that 
the rhythmic art of versification has a grammar of definite rules 
and principles, by which it is distinguished from the art of 
prose-writing. But it is also true that verse-form is not ex- 
clusively a mere externality of poetry. It is an all-important 
truth that rhythm is an effective "cause" of poetry, contributing 
to its elevating and transporting effects and to its power ; that it 
is a help to inspiration and ' ' echoes and answers to fundamental 
factors in our emotional life. "^ When, therefore, the principles 
of verse-rhythm are handled capriciously, there must result a 
perversion of the essential characteristics of the supreme art 
of poetry.® 

Koutine scansion is very generally understood to result in 
a monotony of cadence that cannot be reconciled with the plain 
dem>ands of the esthetic sense. So mechanical a method does 
not comport — this is the argument — with the simple assumption 
of a refined and subtle art. The poet indeed constantly keeps 
in mind the monotony of the normal line, but chiefly to control 
him in the making of artistically necessary variations from it. 
This is the theory that is advocated in opposition to routine 
scansion. Its acceptance assigns logical consistency to the 
stresses, for verse-stress becomes identical with the emphasis 
of prose. But is not this a mechanical avoidance of monotony? 
To allow the feet throughout a line to change in rhythmic char- 
acter in free compliance with logical emphasis, as the reader 
may judge that emphasis, — for the poet is without a device to 



2l take pleasure in thus finding, an occasion to refer to an article on 
the question, "What do we mean by poetry?" (The Unpopular Re- 
view, July-Sept., 1916.) The writer defends regularity of rhythm and 
strictness of verse-form with philosophic and artistic insight, and the 
title of the periodical itself contributes an inference that is not with- 
out a meaning. 

sA caprice may, of course, become conventionalized, but that is 
another matter. The vers Ubre may seem to be far removed from the 
standard requirements of 'verse,' but it owes its tolerance and its best 
effects to a considerable degree to the retained device of line-arrange- 
ment, of the marked 'turning' at the line-end. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 75 

indicate his own notion of the emphasis, — is not this an external 
and nleohanical subterfuge ? And what of the principle of con- 
ventionalized compactness and restraint, which is supposed to be 
fundamental in the arts? Is the figure in gebundene Rede mis- 
applied ? 

It is all a matter, let it be said, of aesthetic and pleasing 
effects, and surely puerile monotony condemns itself. But does 
routine scansion result inevitably in puerile monotony ? Is that 
the effect produced by reading the passage cited above according 
to the subjoined indication of the stresses? Does "conflict" in 
the Latin hexameter hold the cadence in subjection to an artless 
regularity in the temporal recurrence of the beats, and to an 
intolerable sameness in the melodic effects of the line? Now 
"conflict" implies that a stress is placed on a syllable that does 
not carry the chief word-accent but an accent subordinated to 
it — a secondary word-accent ; or the stress may be placed on 
a word or syllable that is usually unemphatic in prose. To 
these is to be added the still larger group of stresses on syllables 
with a secondary word-accent, employed without occasioning 
"conflict." To admit the artistic use of these devices of stress 
is to admit the argument in defense of routine scansion. The 
resultant modulations of line-melody then become analogous to 
the modulations of a musical composition, in the rendering of 
which there is no thought either of wilfully ignoring the reg- 
ularity of the beats (as required by the time-signature), or of 
giving them, in a mechanical way, uniform weight or prom- 
inence. Xo modern Aristoxenos has yet appeared to effect an 
undisputed recognition of this fundamental analogy (with its 
restricted implications) between the rhythms of poetry and 
the rhythms of music. 

As in all serious inquiry, preconceived notions must be dis- 
missed or at least held in abeyance in an honest effort to test 
the validity of the method of scan.sion now to be more minutely 
described. This will be found to be somewhat difficult by read- 
ers accustomed to cherish an unreasoned conviction that because 
of their fine sensibilities their subjective jiidgments in matters 
of artistic response must be superior to conclusions reached by 
the dull and plodding processes — as they regard them — of the 



76 University of Texas Btdletin 

grammarian. Their defense, in the words of Chaucer, who of 
all the great poets does most surely not sustain it, is : 

I can no more expounde in this matere; 
I lerne song, I can but smal grammere. 

More than that, — the argument may run, — if a technical knowl- 
edge of the language is required to understand the principles 
of English verse-rhythm, how have the poets acquired mastery 
of the art? Aristotle answers the question. H'e is discussing 
the acquisition of virtue {Ethics, Bk. II), and assumes that some- 
one might say, in contradiction of his argument, "if men are 
doing the actions, they have the respective virtues already, just 
as men are grammarians or musicians when they do the actions 
of either art." Be meets the objection by suggesting "that it 
is not so even in the case of the arts referred to ; because a man 
may produce something grammatical either by chance or by the 
suggestion of another; but then only will he be a grammarian 
when he not only produces something grammatical but does so 
grammar-wise, i. e., in virtue of the grammatical knowledge he 
himself possesses." This is pertinent to the present discussion. 
That the poets have been the most intense students of their fel- 
low craftsmen, — is not a large portion of literary history devoted 
to making this clear, to showing how much one has learned from 
another? As diligent and discriminating students of the works 
of predecessors, the poets have become finely responsive to all the 
effects of rhythm, and by imitation, suggestion, and persistent 
practice have acquired the art of versification in accordance with 
the finest perception of the rhythmic permissibilities of the lan- 
guage. This usual experience does not exclude a varying degree 
of attention to the rules and principles of the elementary gram- 
mar of the art, but it gives no assurance necessarily of an inquiry 
into the remotest technicalities of the subject. The pertinent 
analogy may be repeated: Correct speech does not give assur- 
ance of a technical grammarian. 

It should now be stated that the following description of ele- 
ments available for stress in English versification is submitted 
for consideration to two principal classes of students of prosody. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 77 

One of these classes has already been brought to mind. It con- 
sists of those who deny that routine scansion is the artistic 
method of reading poetry. The other class — and this not a small 
class — follows the method, but neglects to point out the inherent 
characteristics of the language underlying it and making it artis- 
tically acceptable to the ear. 

What the unbiased reader must regard with least surprise anil 
be most ready to accept as inevitable is the "conflict" with the 
primary word-accent when the verse-stress (ictus) strikes the 
second member of substantive compounds, such as daylight, mid- 
night, eye-glass, and thus consigns the first member to the thesis. 

O weary night, O long and tedious night, 
Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east, 
That I may back to Athens hf daylight. 
From these that my poor company detest: 

M. N. D. Ill, ii, 431ff. 

Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear, 
If ever I thy face by ddylight see: 

Id. Ill, ii, 26-27. 

A treacherous army levied, one midnight 

Thou call'dst me up at viidtnight to fetch dew 

Tempest I, ii, 128, 228. 

Ha' not you seen, Camillo, — 
But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass 
Is thicker than a cuckold's horn, — or heard, — 
W. T. I, ii, 267ff. 

The prevailing "regularity" of these lines co-ordinates the 
rhythmic correctness of variation from the usual word-accent 
with the agreement of word-stress and ictus. In other words, the 
poet has given the clearest indication, by the rhythm of the line- 
end, that there is no "inversion of the foot" to avoid placing, at 
discretion, a stress on the second syllable of the underscored 
compounds. Let the following lines also be scanned now.: 

Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I: 
It is some meteor that the sun exhales, 
To be to thee this night a torch-hearer, 

R. and J. Ill, v, 12ff. 



78 University of Texas Bulletin 

We have not spoke as yet of torch-'bearers 

I am provided of a torch-hearer 

Fair Jessica shall be my tdrch-hearer 

M. of T. II, iv, 5, 24, 40. 

Here the stress just proved by the line-end is employed within 
the line; and by the same evidence it is shown that a compound 
of the type represented by torch-hearer may correctly be stressed 
on the last syllable (-er). The added result of what has thus 
been observed is that each of the three syllables of a compound 
word like torch-bearer is available for the rhythmic stress, and, 
conversely, each of these syllables is available for the thesis of 
a rhythmic foot. The prosodist must now reckon with a gram- 
matical principle of fundamental importance. The syllables of 
the language are accented according to inherent and historically 
perpetuated laws and conventionalities. Taken separately, words 
4iave a grammatical word-accent; in connected discourse, sen- 
tence-emphasis establishes degrees of prominence and of suppres- 
sion of this accent of the independent word ; and in versification 
both word-accent and sentence-emphasis are controlled by the 
requirements of artistic rhythm. 

Word-accent and its function in verse-rhythm direct attention 
to aspects of the inhereoit character of the language that should 
reward study with intellectual and sesthetic profit and pleasure. , 
Dr. Johnson confirms this statement by the full import of the 
lament that "the want of certain rules for the pronunciation of 
former ages, has made us wholly ignorant of the metrical art 
of our ancient poets" {The Plan of a Dictionary of the English 
Language, 1747) ; and by his confessed inability to discover an 
"antecedeint reason for difference of accent in the two words 
dolorous and sonorous," as confirmed by Milton's verse-stress, 
dolorous sonorous. The great lexicographer labored to give due 
consideration to all accessible knowledge relating to facts and 
principles of the language, but he was at the mercy of an un- 
developed state of philological science. To-day "certain rules 
for the pronunciation of former ages" are well understood, and 
the historic method of investigation by which they have been dis- 
covered has effected a quickened sense for close and unbroken 
sequence in linguistic phenomena ; indeed, it has so shortened dis- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 79 

tances in time as to stamp the desigiiation "former ages" with 
a mark of peculiar inappropriateness in this connection. More- 
over, linguistic science has exalted the importance of accentua- 
tion as a principal feature in that peculiar character of a lan- 
guage by which it maintains itself through successive genera- 
tions. To say nothing of the results in comparative grammar 
attained by more exact attention to the laws and effects of ac- 
centuation, it has become clear that the study of an individual 
language must be based on the recognition of a system or code 
of accentuation that has been developed as one of its main char- 
acteristics. Can anything, therefore, be mol'e obviously true as 
an initial tenet than this, that versification in a language is in- 
timately bound up with the special system of accentuation of that 
language ? And if a special prosody is founded on a special sys- 
tem of accentuation, does it not behoove the prosodist to reckon 
first of all with that system? This insistence on the obvious 
must be laid to the charge of those prosodists who, in their treat- 
ment of accentual versification, afford no evidence of an adcr 
quate understanding of that chapter of grammar from which the 
art derives its specific designation. 

This is not an occasion for a detailed report of the laws and 
principles of English accentuation ; and nothing more shall be 
attempted than an indication of some of the simple facts of Eng- 
lish grammar that are at the same time of first importance in 
a consideration of the basis of the conventionalities established 
in the rhythmic use of the language. What shall be added in this 
way is, therefore, merely to enforce the appeal to the student to 
withhold no degree of earnest attention from all the historic phe- 
nomena of English accentuation observable in both prose and 
verse. 

English accentuation (which is Germanic in character) makes 
prominent in utterance the radical or most significant syllable 
of a word, which, in uncompounded words is the first syllable. 
This law of accenting the first syllable underlies the accentua- 
tion of a substantive compound. The first member receives the 
primary accent, and the second member with equal regularity 
receives a lessened degree of stress, which is called the secondary 
accent. The first member of a verbal compound is, hov/ever, too 



80 University of Texas Bulletin 

subordinate in meaning- to receive the primary accent, to which its 
position in the word would otherwise entitle it. The primary ac- 
cent, therefore, remains on the radical syllable of the simple verb 
and the prefix is unaccented, or at most may be accorded a sec- 
ondary accent. But, if the second member of a substantive com- 
pound is thus entitled, by the inherent constitution of the lan- 
guage, to a secondary accent, this right is not cancelled by the 
wearing down of this second member to a derivative syllable or 
formative element, from which it may be easy or difficult (or 
altogether impossible) to conjecture its original form. Thus, 
when god-like becomes godly, the secondary word-accent is not 
relinquished. What is true of the accentuation of this clearly 
understood formative syllable -ly is true of the entire list of for- 
mative and derivative syllables with which it must be classified. 
The Germanic principle of accenting syllables in accordance 
with their relative weight in meaning is exemplified in this un- 
broken tradition of secondary word-accents. 

How does the grammarian come to be so certain of this sec- 
ondary word-accent? It is incontestably proved by the art of ver- 
sification in the earliest period of English and confirmed by the 
rhythm of all subsequent English poetry. Anglo-Saxon poetry 
is composed in conformity to the demands of a highly developed 
art. It is notable for exacting precision of technique, conjoined 
with vigor of thought and a matured refinement of taste. Skill- 
ful craftsmanship is required in the strict observance of re- 
straints and of a code of conventionalities, which contribute to the 
holding of a poetic composition to the elevation of its proper 
plane. In this form of versification the rhythmic elements of the 
language are so clearly exhibited as to remove all doubt from in- 
ferences to be drawn respecting word-accent and its relations 
to rhythmic stress. The early Germanic form of the art has, of 
course, been superseded by another, an imported prosody; but 
the native accentuation of the language has remained unim- 
paired; the inherited rhythmic elements have been subjected to 
the demands of the new versification (which has now been culti- 
vated for centuries as the almost exclusive form), but this has 
not rendered them obscure to the instinctive perception of ihe 
vernacular reader. When, therefore, the poet puts a verse-stress 
on the second syllable of day-light and on the last syllable olf 
torch-hearer, he makes legitimate use of the rhythmic value of 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 81 

secondary word-accents, and is in accord with the practice of 
poets from Cffidmon to Tennyson. 

Let the reader now, if he will, turn investigator and bring to- 
gether what he recognizes as derivative syllables; and then let 
him test his unbiased response to a slight accent on these sylla- 
bles — slight but sufficient to distinguish these syllables from 
those that receive the primary word-accent and from those that 
are "unaccented." He will find that the secondary stress gives 
a satisfactory report of the function of these syllables, and con- 
tributes, therefore, to a truer utterance of the full import of the 
complete words. The test may be begun with -er, which will 
bring torch-bearer into association with a large class of old and 
new nouns of agency. This suffix is held in the mind as a sym- 
bol of agency, and its function in these words is perceived to be 
most like that of a familiar word used as the second member of 
a substantive compound; and a new word is formed as freely 
and as naturally in the one class as in the other-. A process allied 
to this conscious making of new words, with the same im- 
plications of a graduated word-accent, is the comparison of 
the ad.iective l)y adding -er and -est. The nouns of rela- 
tionship, father, mother, brother, sister, eonstitute another cate- 
gory of formations in the pronunciation of which a secondary 
word-accent, under special exigencies,* is altogether acceptable 
to the native ear. An inevitable consequence of this range of 
function of the formative and derivative syllable -er (Germanic, 
but variously derived) is. finally. o])servable in a margin of an 

*What is meant by special exigency in prose-utterance, which is, in 
a way, comparable to the sustained exigency of poetic elevation, is 
illustrated in Puhlications of the Mod. Lang. Assn. of America XIV, 
363 ff. (This is a welcome occasion to ask the reader to cancel the 
word "not" at p. 363, 1. 11 from below, and read: "Such exigencies do 
arise In prose.") Another illustration may be added here, for what Is 
true of -ness is equally true of -er. Ann Apperthwaite's treatment of 
"poor David Beasley" is described. "How did she treat him?" "Threw 
him over out of a clear sky one night, that's all. Just sent him home 
and broke his heart; that is, it would have been, broken if he'd had 
any kind of disposition except the one the Lord blessed him with — 
just all optimism and cheerfulness and make-the-best-of-it-ness!" — 
Booth Tarkington, Beasley' s Christmas Party. Ch. III. 



82 University of Texas Bulletin 

analogous use of the secondary word-accent in words like after, 
ever, never ^ further, either, neither, hither, thither, and even 
summer, winter, leather, silver, water, etc. 

In a ceremonious utterance of prose — -as formal as the read- 
ing of a church-service^ — the syllables bearing a secondary 
word-accent are made more than usually prominent, and the 
effect is twofold : the mind is quickened in the perception of the 
sense-value of these syllables, and the ear is gratified by a gain 
in rhythmic movement. The second of these effects is surely 
not the weaker. It is gratifying because it is felt to be appro- 
priate to the solemnity of the thought and to the exaltation of 
the emotions. This common experience gives an apprehension 
of the highest function of verse-rhythm. It is a short step from 
the emotional reading of formal prose to the artistic (which 
is also emotional) reading of poetry. In both methods the 
rhythmic elements of the language, many of which are habitu- 
ally suppressed in unelevated utterance, are employed to attain 
and to sustain definitely desired effects. The average reader 
is, therefore, sufficiently prepared to verify the generalization 
that observance, at discretion, of secondary word-accents con- 
tributes to the freer rhythm of stately prose and to the artis- 
tically controlled rhythm of poetry. The second term of this 
generalization, which embraces the particular point at issue, 
may be restated in the formula, secondary word-accent is avail- 
able for verse-stress (ictus). 

To verify the formula just arrived at, the investigating 
reader might now proceed with the several categories of sec- 
ondary word-accent already particularized. However, he had 
probably better take a wider view and add to his equipment 



sThe formal reading in the church has affected the delivery of the 
sermon. In both the secondary word-accents receive a degree of atten- 
tion that should be suggestive to the prosodist. The church, there- 
fore, rather than the stage, contributes to keep alive a sense for the 
meaning of syllables that are commonly slighted in distinctness of 
utterance. Very recently I heard a sermon in which was earnestly 
proclaimed the difference between "divine wisdom" and "human wise- 
ness." 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey S3 

an approximately complete list of these categories. Detailed 
assistance in this task, which is not a difficult one, need not be 
given here, if he will consent to be referred to Bright and 
Miller's Elements of English Versification (Ginn & Co.). And 
it may add something to his equipment to disengage his mind 
from connotations of the terms "routine" and "regular" as ap- 
plied to scansion; "routine" is especially suggestive of mechani- 
cal artlessness, and "regular" has come to be regarded as its ill- 
favored variant or substitute. Starting afresh with no hindrance 
in a technical term can, perha;ps, be made possible by defining 
scansion as the reading of a verse according to its rhythm-sig- 
nature. The terra is suggested by the musician's "time-signa- 
ture," which he sets to govern the reading of his compositions. 
The list of formative and derivative syllables (including a 
large number of prefixes) has been greatly increased by words 
of Latin and French origin, but these, for the most part, are 
scanned according to the rhythm-signature by^ prosodists in gen- 
eral, including those most insistent in their denial of the stress- 
value of the secondary word-accents of many native words. In 
the rhythmic use of these foreign words — especially of the poly- 
syllabic forms — there is a freedom in the distribution of the 
stresses that demonstrates in itself the availability of a second- 
ary Avord-accent for ictus. A line like 

This supernS,tiiral soliciting 

Macbeth I, iii, 130. 

unites the native -ing with foreign elements, and clearly disal- 
lows a difference of interpretation with reference to the rhyth- 
mic use of secondary word-accents. Of course, the poet requires 
a stress on the alternate syllables and that — it is said — ex- 
plains the whole matter. This again illustrates the handling 
of ai'tistic phenomena by some who protest most warmly against 
a "mechanical" method. The interlacing of a series of grada- 
tions in weight of meaning or emphasis with a series of grada- 
tions in stress, both subject to artistically imposed variations, 
results in the m^elody of the line; and this melody is, therefore, 
neither monotonous, nor identically the same in successive lines, 
except by unusual and deliberate design. 



84 University of Texas Bulletin 

The matter is comprehensively stated by saying that the poet 
may lighten the heavy tread of a word or syllable that in prose 
would be more emphatic; and, conversely, that he may raise to 
sojne degree of stress-prominence a word or syllable that in 
prose woiild be less prominent. The movement of the line is 
thereby made less pedestrian, more "winged." 

The house-keeper, the hunter, every one 

And let us not be dainty of leave-taking 

Macbeth III, i, 96; II, lii, 150. 

Let the first of these lines be read in ,a sustained monotone 
(reading it as a succession of heavy spondees will not lead 
far astray), and it will be perceived that the stress on -er is an 
important element in the melody, which would indeed be hope- 
lessly damaged by displacement of this stress in conformity to 
any notion of the prose-accentuation of Jiouse-kseper . The 
reader should also respond to the notional stress thus secured 
(the notion of responsible 'agency' dominates the line and its 
context), which compensates for the weak rhythmic position of 
the repeated element -er (in hunter). The rhetoric of poetry 
abounds in subtleties of thought that are easily obscured when 
poetry is read libe prose. To cite another example in this con- 
nection, how finely (and with what inner grammatical pro- 
priety) the, stressed -er of the comparative answers back to the 
measuring demonstrative the (which, in its turn, is raised to a 
higher level as thesis), in these lines. 

Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood, 
That we the horrider may seem to those 
Which chance to find us 

Cymbeline IV, ii, 330ff. 

The second of the lines cited from Macbeth has a melody 
that is harmonious with that of the first but not identical with 
it. The stress on a proposition followed by a 'conflict' is the 
most distinctive feature of this melody. But the critical wren, 
"The most diminutive of birds, will fight," protesting that a 
preposition is accentually a proclitic. However, 

Things kt the worst will cease, or else climb upward. 

Macbeth IV, ii, 24. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 85 

Dismissing a suspicion of a covert applicati'on of this line, 
let the phrase at tJie worst be freely tried colloquially, and the 
possibility of an accented preposition will surely be verified. 
A problem is now encountered that might be pursued in several 
directions, but nothing more shall be attempted here than a 
partial indication of the poet's use of the notional value of 
prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, copulative and .auxiliary 
verbs, articles, and pronouns, — words to which normal stress is 
often theoretically denied. 

The following lines added to those already cited will keep the 
discussion concrete. Lines thus taken at random prove that an 
English verse is con.structed not only according to a rhythm-signa- 
ture, but al.so according to a rhetoric of poetry; and that this is a 
rhetoric of the finest distinctions in the notional function of the 
elements of the language, which are, by reason of the notional 
basis of the native system of accentuation, capable of being re- 
ported to the ear by some degree or sort of stress. Herein lies 
an important requirement of good poetry. The poet must keep 
his composition m a movement that liolds it steadily and agree- 
ably above the level of prose. Obviously he must exercise a re- 
fined sense for the notional and i-hythmic value of each sylla- 
ble admitted into a line. The artistic compactness of poetic 
expression alone must fatally expose the slightest fault or infe- 
licity in the selection of a word or syllable. 

I draw the sword myself: take it, and hit 
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart; 
Fear not: 'tis empty of all things but grief: 
Thy master is not there, who wds indeed 
The riches of it: do his bidding; strike, 
Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause 

As qudrrelons 6s the weasel; nay, you must 
Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek 

Cymbeline III, iv, 69ff; 161f. 

There is no malice in thjs burning coal; 

The breath of heaven has blown his spirit out 

And strew'd repentant ashes 6n his head 

And oftentimes excusing of a fault 

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse 

that close aspect of his 
Does show the mood of « much troubled breast 

E. J. IV, i, 109ff ; ii, 30f; 72f. 



.86 University of Texas Bulletin 

Thy father was the Duke of Milan and 
A prince of power 

Tempest 1, ii, 54f. 

Who needs must know of her departure dnd 
Dost seem so Ignorsint, we'll enforce it from thee 

"Wlhat can from Italy annoy us: but 
We grieve at chances here 

Cymbeline IV, iii, lOf; 34f. 

To throw a perfume on the violet, 

To smooth the ice, or add another hue 

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 

Is wasteful dnd ridiculous excess 

K. J. IV, ii, 12ff. 

O God, thy arm was here; 
And not to us but W thy arm alone 
Ascribe we all! 

E. H. V, IV, viii, lllff. 

What is to be learned by observing the ryhthmic construc- 
tion of the lines now before the reader is unmistakably clear, 
and it is not denied that 

The argument all bare is of more worth 
Than when it hath my added praise beside! 

Sonnet CIII. 

The observer shall be asked, however, to allow a brief con- 
tinuance in the method of directing his attention to elementary 
facts and principles. Do not these lines then give an insight 
into the means, legitimated by the rhetoric of poetry, by which 
the poet secures variety of melodic movement? And do not 
these lines contribute to an insight into the principles of that 
rhetoric? The words marked for special attention are words 
that express the relations of the thought, the direction of its 
applications, its connections (coordinate, adversative, etc.), and 
its turnings on selected details (as in the use of articles and pro- > 
nouns). These stresses and those of "conflict" and other uses 
of secondary word-accents as ictus constitute approved devices 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 87 

for sustaining poetic elevation of thought and artistic move- 
ment of expression; they contribute also to delicacy and pre- 
cision in the articulation of the thought: and they enable the 
poet to hold together more compactly the parts of emotional 
and figurative iexpressions.'' It follows that the principles ob- 
served in composing it are not to be nullified in the" reading of 
poetry. In music the corresponding inference is not disputed; 
even a partial disregard of it is recognized as due to individual 
capriee. 

Although the argument of this communication has been pre- 
sented in the most elementary manner, its complete significance 
must be apparent enough to the unbiased reader. But there 
has been recent advocacy of a theory of stresses by which the 
argument advanced here is so plainly though indirectly con- 
firmed that it should now be recalled, however briefly.'^ It is 
contended that the light stresses are not marked off audibly but 

eThese points should be discussed in an analysis of style in poetry; 
but only this shall be added, that "The essence of style," as described 
by Mr. Galsworthy (Foreword to W. H. Hudson's Green Mansions), 
will be made more clearly perceptible by reading poetry in such a 
manner as to hold each syllable to its notional and rhythmic function. 
These are Mr. Galsworthy's words, which are suggestively applicable to 
Btyle in poetry: "To use words so true and simple, that they oppose 
no obstacle to the flow of thought and feeling from mind to mind, and 
yet by juxtaposition of word-sounds set up in the recipient continuing 
emotion or gratification." 

TSee T. S. Oman, " 'Inverted Feet' in Verse" {The Acadcrtiy, Oct. 2 
and 10, 1908), and R. M. Alden, "The Mental Side of Metrical Form" 
{The Mod. Lang. Revietv IX, 297-308). Mr. Oman cites these lines 
from Pope: 

Or garden, tempting loith forbidden fruit. 
And catch the manners living as they rise. 

His comment runs: "No one would say that the words italicised in 
these lines carry a full stress. To call them 'metrically accented' is to 
juggle with terms. Does or does not this metrical accent imply any 
corresponding speech-stress? Clearly it does not; only a child sing- 
songing its lines would lay stress on these words. Speech-stress and 
metrical accent are two different things, not to be confounded. Half 
the mistakes of prosodic theory come from supposing that a mental 
beat must needs receive physical expression. . . . rhythm can be fol- 



88 University of Texas Bulletin 

only mentally. The merit of this theory is that it maintains the 
signature-place of the stresses ; its defect consists in a psycholog- 
ical refinement (to the vanishing point of audible rhythm) of 
signature-scansion that contradicts the inherent character of 
English accentuation and denies the plain evidence of an un- 
broken tradition, through centuries, in the artistic use of the 
rhythmic elements of the language. 

To suggest a method of study has been the primary aim in 
this discussion, and it must be closed with a mere enumeration 
of additional topics of importance in a complete exposition of 
the artistic effects of scansion according to rhythm-signature. 
The stress of inflectional and conjugational endings ; the ad- 
mission of extra syllables (the resolution of arsis and of the- 
sis) ; the conventional "trochaic beginning," and the "direct 
attack"; the use of pauses; the time-relations ("quantity") of 
the elements of a rhythmic pattern, and its tempo or rate of 
movement, — regrettably, it is necessary to refrain from even 
the briefest evaluation of these attractive divisions of the subject. 

Overtopping all other considerations, the hope is entertained 
that nothing has been offered here to deserve the disapproba- 
tion of the spirit of Shakespeare, because this is 

'Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace 
by distractingly directing the mind of my readers 

To new-found methods. and to compounds strange.' 

« 

The more positive side of the sustained hope has been to pro- 
mote true and complete response to the great master's art — ^the 
response he oould not have expected ever to become either dull 
or fantastic. 

lowed even though an occasional beat be not emphasized by syllable- 
stress." 

Professor Alden is incapable of such inexactness in the use of 
technical terms, and he gives assistance in the perception of the varied 
and subtle character of the disputed stresses. Further comment on 
this theory must, however, be withheld for another occasion. 



THE QUARREL OF BENEDICK AND BEATRICE 
By Charles Read Baskervill 

On the average modern reader the quarrel of Benedick and 
Beatrice in MucJi Ado About Nothing, II, 1, makes no exception- 
al impression. It seems little more than a renewed attack in the 
war of wits between the two which the reader has been following 
up to this point. Beatrice is accused of borrowing her jests from 
A Hundred Merry Tales, and retaliates by comparing Benedick's 
wit to that of the "prince's jester." Why is Benedick, who takes 
Beatrice's seemingly more bitter taunts in good part, roused to 
«uch wrath at this? The blow to his mere vanity as a wit does 
not seem to explain sufficiently the effect on him, oior does the 
view that the sparring of the two here simply brings to a climax 
the rising anger of Benedick. Such an interpretation is not true 
to the spirit of the play or to the emphasis laid on the passage in 
the development of Shakespeare's plot. For it is immediately af- 
ter this — after Benedick in recounting the quarrel to Don Pedro 
has declared that he would not marry Beatrice "though she were 
endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed" 
— that Don Pedro proposes what is characterized as ' ' one of Her- 
cules ' labours," to make the two antagonists fall in love with 
each other. The truth is that the quarrel has lost for modern 
readers the force of its meaning; its richness in suggestion for 
Renaissance readers a-nd hearers has faded out. Beatrice 's taunt 
is not a last straw for the already nettled Benedick, but a most 
outrageous insult. 

In order to understand Benedick's feeling that Beatrice has 
been guilty of an unpardonable insult, one must understand the 
exceptional value set by the courtly classes of the Renaissance 
upon a wit that represented humanistic culture, and the absolute 
condemnation of certain tJT'^s of jesting. At an early period in 
the Renaissance, humanists began to formulate a doctrine of true 
wit, or wit that belonged to the ideals of courtesy and conse- 
quently differentiated the man of true virtue or distinction from 

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90 • University of Texas Bulletin 

the vulgar.^ Schoolboys as well as courtiers were trained in the 
types of jests appropriate to the man of culture.- Even rhetorics 
like Wilson 's Arte of Bhetorique dealt with the matter as a phase 
of Renaissance education. Wilson classified types of jesting that 
were to be avoided, and distinguished "betwixt a common iester, 
and a pleasant ^^aseman. "'' But to true or cultured wit the Re- 
naissance gave the highest approval. Some early humanists like 
Sir Thomas More were esteemed as highly for their wit as for any 
other quality. The stress laid on wit by the courtesy books has 
led some students to find the source of Benedick and Beatrice in 
the greatest of the courtesy books, II Cortegiano, as translated by 
Sir Thomas Hoby.* It is more probable, however, that Shake- 
speare was merely sharing the Renaissance passion for wit, and in 
portraying his witty characters like Biron and Rosaline, and Ben- 
edick and Beatrice reflected simply the witty conversation af- 
fected by English gallants and ladies at Elizabeth's court and 
among those who imitated the customs of the court. Lyly's 
Eupliues and his plays, as well as other novels and plays of the 
last quarter of the sixteenth century, illustrate the vogue. 

In Shakespeare 's early comedies there is a great elaboration of 
the various types of wit current in the age, and his characters, 
along with those of his contemporaries in general, observe with 
a fair degree of consistency the laws of decorum in the use of 
types of wit and humorous language. We have the raillery and 
mockery of the courtly class ; the plays upon words, antithetical 
retorts and logical fence; the hyperbole, the conceits, the far- 
fetched similes and metaphors of its love poetry. Nearest to wit 
of the courtly type and often not easily to be distinguished from 
it, is the wit of the page, with his perverse logic, his impudent 
mockery, and his shrewd waggishness. Dromio of Syracuse and 
Speed illustrate the type best in Shakespeare, though they have 



iCf. Burckhardt, Renaissance in Italy, translated by Middlemore, 
1914, pp. 154 ff. 

'Cf. Erasmus, Colloquies, "The Religious Treat" and "The Fabulous 
Feast"; and Castiglione, II Oortegiamo, translated by Hoby, pp. 152 ff. 

«Mair's edition, pp. 137-139. 

*Cf. Sir Walter Raleigh's introduction to the edition of The Cour- 
tier in the Tudor Translations, and Miss M. A. Scott in Modern Lang. 
Publications, XVI (1901), pp. 489-502. 



Memorial Volume to STiakespeare and Harvey 91 

a stronger tinge of the clown than Lyly's pages. More clownish 
still is the type of wit seen in such servants as Dromio of Ephe- 
sus and Launee, with their soliloquies and droll narratives in- 
terspersed with reports of conversations — characters akin in wit 
to the vices of the older drama. Bnt to the Elizabethan the most 
degraded of all forms of wit arising from conscious effort was 
that of the professional fool, or jester, who in his worst form was 
kno\\m as the ale-house jestei;. Theoretically the wit of any of 
these less favored classes would have been disgraceful in a courtly 
person, marking him as an inferior in culture and social stand- 
ing." 

In Elizabeth's court, where gallants and ladies constantly 
paraded their wit and even pages revealed the same passion, the 
professional jester and the pure simpleton do not seem to have 
found an important place. Their function had not altogether 
died out, however. Some fools were retained in noblemen's 
houses," and the old jest books, whose tales were often grouped 
around the names of jesters of Henry VIII 's court, were exceed- 
ingly popular among the common people. Some of these stories 
set forth the jests of people of rank, but all were condemned bj^ 
the courtly and cultivated at the end of the sixteenth century. 
The accusation that her jests were stolen from A Hundred Merry 



5ln Love's Labour's Lost, the play that best illustrates courtly wit 
before Much Ado, comparison of the types is invited in the page Moth 
and even in Costard, who is not always the pure clown. In Much Ado 
Shakespeare sets over against courtly wit the humor of the pure 
clown, and attains one of his most striking contrasts. In opposition 
to the wit of conscious effort is the unconscious blundering of the clown 
with his stupidity in -the pretentious use of words and ideas. The most 
conventionally stupid clown was the constable. In him, as in his wits, 
Shakespeare was following the convention of the age. The constable 
appeared in plays like Endimton and Leir before the day of Dogberry 
and Verges. The "Stage-keeper" in the Induction of Jonson's BartholO' 
mew Fair, picturing Tarleton as acting at the Fair in a role appro- 
priate to him, with another actor playing the rogue, declare^ that at 
the end you would have seen "a substantial watch to have stolen in 
upon them, and taken them away, with mistaking words, as the 
fashion is in the stage-practice." 

®Cf. Armins' Nest of Ninnies for an account of a number of such 
fools. Beatrice in I, 1, refers to her uncle's fool. 

7—S ■ 



92 University of Texas Bulletin 

Tales was in itself an insult that Beatrice was not slow to resent. 
She repaid the insult with overflowing measure, however, when 
•she not only called Benedick "a very dull fool" but added a 
turn that gave mortal offence. She described him unmistakably 
as the ale-house jester. 

"^Beatrice — Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool: 
only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none out liber- 
tines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, 
but in his villany ; for he both pleases men and angers them, and 
then they laugh at him and beat him. . . . 

Benedick — When I know the gentleman, I '11 tell him what you 
say. 

Beatrice — Do, do : he '11 but break a comparison or two on me ; 
which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him 
into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for 
the fool will eat no supper that night. ' ' 

The ale-house jester had been condemned earlier in the six- 
teenth century, as by Wilson in his Arte of Bhetorique, but by the 
end of the century he was one type of professional jester that was 
almost universally condemned and in the most indignant terms, 
particularly as one who misled young gentlemen, nobles, and 
princes. His jests were not mere second-hand tales and more or 
less stupid retorts ; they were scurrilous, degraded, and vicious — 
"villany," as Beatrice declares. His attraction lay in the sharp- 
ness of his raillery and abuse, and his was a studied art to amuse 
young men to their own damage and to the profit of this new 
type of professional parasite. The most exhaustive picture of 
him in his most detestable phase is given by Jonson in Carlo 
Buffone of Every Man Out of His Humour. Carlo represents 
in his main traits the buffoon as condemned by Aristotle and 
the ale-house jester as condemned by Wilson and other human- 
ists. Jonson 's character apparently reflects, also, the most 
famous of the actual jesters representing the type at the end of 
the sixteenth century, Charles Chester. All the vices ascribed 
to Benedick as the "prince's jester" are scathingly rebuked in 
the figure of Carlo. Though less complete than Jonson 's, there 
are also a number of illustrations of the type before Shakespeare. 
Nashe's picture of Chester in Pierce Pennilesse illustrates all the 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 93 

points of Beatrice's sketch, the slanders of the jester, the prince's 
laughing at his scurrility and yet beating him in anger, the 
"breaking of a comparison" as a feature of his art. Nashe con- 
demns not only the jester but the keeper as well : 

"It is a disparagement to those that haue any true sparke of 
Gentilitie, to be noted of the whole world so to delight in de- 
tracting, that they should keepe a venemous toothd Cur, and 
feed him with the crums that fall from their table, to do noth- 
ing but bite euery one by the shins that passe by. If they will 
needes be merry, let them haue a foole and not a knaue to dis- 
port them, and seeke some other to bestow their almes on, than 
such an impudent begger."^ 

Shakespeare himself had used the type before Much Ado. 
When in Henry IV he represented the youth of Heniy V, who 
according to old stories was given to wild company, he changed 
the picture of a young prince who was merely an associate of 
robbers in The Famous Victories of Henry V into that of a young 
prince misled by an ale-house jester. The age readily under- 
stood such an association, for men were seeing it and condemn- 
ing it, as I have pointed out. Shakespeare does not, however, 
make the prince who developed into his ideal king the patron of 
a mere scurrilous, railing parasite. The jester who exercises his 
wit to procure meals from Prince Hal is made the most subtle and 
genial humorist of all literature. But the essential basis of the 
sketch must not be forgotten. Falstaff gets his meals by his jest- 
ing; his jesting is frequently raillery and abuse; and his abuse of 
the Prince is rank enough to justify Hal, if he had been so dis- 
■posed in beating him as other ale-house parasites are represented 
as being beaten when they went too far with their patrons. Fur- 
ther, a large amount of Falstaff 's wit is in the nature of the "ab- 
surd comparisons" which are stressed so fully by Nashe and 
eTonson, and are imputed to Benedick by Beatrice. 

It is worth noting that in spite of the sharp distinctions 
drawn between true wit and unworthy railing and in spite of the 
great pride in wit revealed among the cultured like Benedick and 
Beatrice m. the Renaissance, both Benedick and Beatrice betray 
an unusual sensitiveness to the charge of grossness in wit. Mary 



''Works, edited by McKerrow, Vol. I, p. 191. 



94 University of Texas Bulletin 

Lamb remarks in regard to Benedick, ''There is nothing that 
great wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, be-' 
cause the charge comes sometimes a little too near the truth." 
Benedick in reflecting on Beatrice's charges says, "The prince's 
■ fool! Ha? It may be I go under that title because I am merry." 
But the hesitation about the worthiness of his wit is only mo- 
mentary; he immediately ascribes such an estimate to the "base, 
though bitter, disposition of Beatrice, ' ' and expresses afterwards 
nothing but indignation at the charges brought against him as a 
wit. Beatrice is forced to hear a similar estimate of her wit, 
though she is accused merely of pride and scorn, not of " villany. ' ' 
when Hero and Ursula are baiting her in III, 1, knowing that 
she overhears, her raillery is condemned, and with a kind of poetic 
justice she is accused- of transforming men with the absurd com- 
parisons that make up a part of her picture of Benedick as an 
ale-house jester. 

"Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man. 
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured. 
But she would spell him backward : if fair-faced. 
She would swear the gentleman should be her sister ; 
If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique. 
Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed; 
If low, an agate very vilely cut; 
. If speaking, why a vane blown with all winds; 
If silent, why, a block moved with none. 
So turns she every man the wrong side out 
And never gives to truth and virtue that 
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. ' ' 

In answer to this indictment Beatrice soliloquizes, 

"What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? 

Stand I condemn 'd for pride and scorn so much? 
Comtempt, farewell ! and maiden pride, adieu ! 
No glory lives behind the back of such." 

As a matter of fact, though courtly wit was sharply differ- 
entiated from all that savored of scurrility and clownishness. 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 95 

much of the wit of Lyly's courtly characters and of Shake- 
speare's in the plays up to and including Mucli Ado is of the rail- 
ing and personal type. The conventional treatment of heroines 
in Italian novelle and in the fiction of all Elizabeth's reign pre- 
sents them as unapproachable and scornful of all wooers, and 
their scorn is best expressed in their wit. The convention is con- 
spicuous in Love's Labour's Lost. But, at the end of the century, 
new developments in the idea of what was allowable in wit are 
very clear. Not only does the satire on the absurd similes or 
comparisons that appear in the accounts of Chester, of Falstaff, 
and of Carlo Buffone, and in the accusations against Benedick 
and Beatrice seem to have received fresh emphasis,^ but the scorn 
and pride of the unapproachable court lady was also going out 
of fashion. When Beatrice is being lectured into love, Ursula re- 
marks, 

' ' Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable, ' ' 

and Hero replies, 

"No, not to be so odd and from all fashions 
As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable." 

Shakespeare has expressed here the verdict around 1600 on the 
disdainful type of heroine. The words are for the moment's ef- 
fect on Beatrice, and cannot represent any true estimate of her, 
for she is infinitely more complex and more witty than the sketch 
of Hero and Ursula shows her. Nevertheless, she is sufficiently 
akin to the type condemned by her two companions to make their 
verdict telling. In the year in which Much Ado probably ap- 
peared, 1599, Jonson, clearly glancing at the type as portrayed 
in Euphues, satirized in Saviolina' of Every Man Out of His 
Humour the pert and caustic lady of wit as shallow and out of 
fashion among the courtly. Rosaline of Love's Labour's Lost is 
Shakespeare's first essay in the type. In Beatrice he has fur- 
nished the finest development of the conception; but even in 
Much Ado he has brought to light the essential weakness of such 



'Cf. Hart, 'W<orks of Ben Jonson, Vol. 1, pp. xxxvi ff., and Basker- 
vill, English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy, pp. 174-177. 



96 University of Texas Bulletin 

an ideal of wit, and I think it can be said that he never again 
attempted to portray the type. Perhaps, indeed, the use in Much 
Ado of a type already going out of fashion may have been due 
to the fact that Shakespeare was here revising an old play, pos- 
sibly the Love's Labour's Won, which has been conjecturally 
identified with an early version of Much Ado. 



SHAKESPEARE'S CONCEPTION OF HUMOR AS EXEM- 
PLIFIED IN FALSTAFF 

By Henry David Gray 

When I can induce the nice young people Avho make up my 
undergraduate classes in Shakespeare to tell me the very truth 
of the matter, I find that few of them really think Falstaff as- 
funny as the solemn critics have always made him out. They 
will admit that their sensibilities are more often offended by 
him than their risibilities are roused (though they do not pu' 
it in just that way), and some are so hardy as to think that the 
fault lies as much in the too great freedom of Elizabethan 
times as in the ultra-modesty of themselves. I remember that 
as an undergraduate this Avas very much my own feeling. I 
knew that Falstaff was accounted the greatest humoi'ous char- 
acter in all literature ; yet I, who prided myself upon having: 
a sense of humor, would sometimes deliberately skip the Fal- 
staff scenes in Ilenry IV, because I felt in reading them more 
of ynger, disgust, and even boredom than of genuine amuse- 
ment and delight. Ever-, those who have written on Falstaff 
with most authority have sometimes felt his extremity of wick- 
edness as a limitation. Thus Maurice Morgann, whose famous 
essay on "The Character of Sir John Falstaff" toward the 
close of the eighteenth century has been the foundation of all 
later criticism, while recognizing that Falstaff is "the most 
perfect comic character that perhaps ever was exhibited," yet 
says: "It must be a strange art in Shakespeare that can draw 
our liking and good will toward so offensive an object . . . 
Is the humor and gayety of vice so very captivating?" In 
like manner. Professor Stoll, whose "Falstaff" forms one of 
his series of studies in Shakespearean characters exemplifying 
the New Criticism, can scarcely find terms sufficient to con- 
demn Falstaff 's character and conduct. "Falstaff . . . 
already a cheat, a liar, a boaster, a glutton, a lecher, and a 
thief, could hardly help being a coward as well." "All this- 
['wrecking one's self on a dead body' and the like] once wa»' 
funny," says Stoll, "and now is base and pitiful." 

[97] 



98 University of Texas Bulletin 

The question is therefore before us : has the humor of Fal- 
staff become antiquated 1 Nothing i s less permanent than 
humor, since it depends so largely on the element of surprise, 
and on the appeal of the familiar seen in an unaccustomed 
light; and after three hundred years what once was surprising 
becomes familiar, and what was familiar becomes strange. Yet 
even in humor there are certain elements which are permanent; 
and if a character is conceived in accordance with the funda- 
mental principles of what is necessarily and eternally comic, 
he should be as truly humorous in one age as another. Let 
us consider the characteristics of Falstaff, to see whether they 
are such as were particularly appropriate to the Elizabethan 
period or are essential to a humorous character at any and all 
times. This may lead us to a more important question. There 
are many indications in the Henry IV plays that Shakespeare 
was attempting as deliberately as the spontaneity essential to 
the true humorist permitted, to create a character as completely 
the embodiment of laughter as was possible. As Falstaff him- 
self comments: "The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, 
man, is not able to invent anything that intends to laughter, 
more than I invent or is invented on me. "^ On the other hand 
there are some signs that Falstaff ran away from Shakespeare, 
and in doing so ran away as well from the New Criticism of 
Professor Stoll. 

The first thing we. think of in connection with Falstaff is that 
he is fat. Now to be fat, even extremely fat, is not necessarily 
funny. The fat lady of a circus side show is an object of curi- 
osity and pity rather than of laughter. Yet as incongruity is the 
soul of humor, Falstaff, to be completely and absolutely amus- 
ing in every particular, must be either too fat or too thin.^ 



, ^1 Henry IV, I, ii, 7. 

^Or else, perhaps, too short or too tall. Every departure from the 
normal offers an opportunity for caricature, and there is probably no 
.obvious peculiarity which has not been humorously treated. Every 
■phase of personal ugliness has been portrayed; every physical afHic- 
tion or deformity has been paraded. Anyone may recall abundant in- 
stances, from the mediaeval gargoyle to the modern vaudeville come- 
dian and circus clown. The grotesque, or physically abnormal treated 
humorously, usually contains, however, something repellent, and our 



Memorial Volume to STiakespeare and Harvey 99 

In creating a character for the stage, who must be portrayed 
by an actor, Shakespeare's choice was inevitable. An actor 
can easily "make up" as fat as ever you will, but he cannot be 
any thinner than he is. On the printed page there is no such 
limitation. Cervantes created the tall and gaunt Don Quixote 
almost at the very time that Shakespeare produced his comic 
masterpiece; and the thinness of Don Quixote has remained 
for these three hundred years as essential an element of humor 
as the fat of Falstaff. Certainly, though it is the most obvious 
and least individual of his many extremes, the fat of Falstaff 
is as essentially grotesque in one age as another; and for him 
to be completely comic, it is a necessary and not a fortuitous 
condition. 

That Falstaff is a glutton and a monstrous drinker of sack 
follows as a matter of course. Here it is not the much eating 
and drinking which produces the fat, but the fat of Falstaff 
causes the eating and drinking! I do not mean that Shake- 
speare first determined upon the bulk of flesh and then added 
gormandizing and bibulous habits as corollaries. I am merely 
examining the possible sources of humor and arranging these 
in a logical not chronological order. The hungry and 'glutton- 
ous parasite comes, as every one knows, from Latin comedy; 
and Professor StoU is quite right in recognizing that Falstaff 's 



sense of amusement is therefore quickly exhausted. We cannot re- 
ceive the greatest possible amount of humorous delight from a character 
we despise, whom we merely laugh at. We must be rather fond of 
Falstaff, or at least somewhat in sympathy with him, if he is to please 
us utterly. Hence mere ugliness is given not to Falstaff but to Bar- 
dolph, just as mere braggadocio is given to Pistol, mere cowardice to 
Gadshill, Bardolph and Peto (in the robbery exploit), and various 
travesties of human infirmities are shown in the ragged recruits. 
Falstaff is on the whole a proper man. Gout gives him a momentary 
halting; the humor frequently derived from deafness is supplied ir: 
Falstaff by "the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking" 
(2 Henry lY, I, ii, 77, 138, 275). These may afford us amusement for 
the nonce; but to produce continuous laughter on the physical side, 
ugliness, deformity, or even an assumed affliction could scarcely serve. 
If, then, a physical peculiarity is to be chosen at all, it should be one 
that is fundamental and symbolic, in the light of which all his othur 
characteristics must be read. 



100 University of Texas Bulletin 

characteristics are largely taken from the conventional humor- 
ous types of previous literature.^ Now the fat of Falstaff is 
limited by the ability of the actor to perform his part; but 
there is no limit to the amount of meat and drink which he may 
be said to have consumed. It is as easy to say a barrel as a 
pint; but to attain the height of humor a wild and unimagi- 
nable exaggeration is quite as futile as the literal truth. Hence 
in *the bill which the Prince rifles from the sleeping Falstaff 's 
pocket he finds the charge for "Sack, 2 gallons," with ancho- 
vies and more sack after supper. That is, the exaggeration 
is just as it should be in order to arouse the coveted laugh — 
preposterous but not unthinkable. 

But there is one limit placed upon the drinking of Falstaff 
which is of genuine significance. Though drunkenness is an un- 
failing source of amusement to an audience, Falstaif, as Pro- 
fessor Bradley has noted,* is never shown on the stage as drunk. 
The reason is that the drunken man is an object of contempt; 
and Falstaff to be greatly and victoriously humorous must hold 
the reins of humor in his own hands. 

The Complete Drinker could not by any chance be unsocial. 
That which most endears Falstaff to us is his good fellowship. 
He is ever the boon companion. He makes no distinctions of 
high and low. We are made happy by Falstaff and laugh with 
him, says Bradley, because he is happy and at ease; and 
Henry's "rejection" of Falstaff seems to this critic a great 
blemish in the character of Shakespeare's supposedly ideal 
English king, arguing a sternness and coldness which contrast 
sadly with Falstaff 's warmth of affection for the Prince. But 
Falstaff 's friendly sociability, like the lip-loyalty of Fellow- 
ship in Everyman, fails to stand the test of true friendship; 
and Shakespeare seems to consider this as essential to a char- 
acter whose mission is simply and solely to supply humor. Any 
deeper note would be fatal. Though Falstaff is so thoroughly 



sEven the parasitic element usual in the glutton of Plautus and 
Terence appears in Falstaff's ever permitting Prince Hal to pay the 
charges of their drinking. See 1 Henry IV, I, ii, 55-62. 

*"The Rejection of Falstaff," in Oxford Lectures on Poetry. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 101 

fond of the Prince,'^ yet he speaks of him behind his back in a 
way that no true friend could ever do. It is always humor- 
ously put— for the laugh's sake; indeed on one occasion'^ his 
abuse of the Prince and Poins is abruptly introduced the mo- 
ment the Prince and Poins enter in their disguise, obviously in 
order that the audience may enjoy the situation. We should 
not take this more seriously than Prince Harry himself does ; but 
it must be noted that Falstaff's open disloyalty is only capped 
and completed by Henry's rejection of him on becoming king. 
This humorous retribution — if it is that — must be considered 
later, since it is one of the instances where the humor no longer 
appeals to us. The point under present consideration is only 
that mere sociability and comradeship, carried to their logical 
absurdity, preclude serious friendship, and to produce genuine 
humor must be merely the opposite extreme of such isolation, 
peevishness, and moroseness as we find humorously treated in 
Malvolio. 

Though there is, of course, nothing comic about sociability 
in and of itself, it is the essential basis for the hilarity and 
boistrous mirth which engender a kindred jollity and good feel- 
ing in the audience. Nothing so quickly begets laughter as a 
hearty laugh. The mirthfulness of Falstaff is contagious. His 
laughter is exuberant, manifold, uproarious, recalling Kabe- 
lais. And if we are offended by the grossness and obscenity 
here' also, that much must be put down to the change of taste, 
which is after all less complete than we might wish. The 
humor of the tavern is still the humor of the bar-room; and 
however low in sort and painful to the ears of most of us, we 
must agree that it is an essential part of the game. Here I 
admit gladly that the humor no longer makes a universal ap- 
peal ; but the alternative of an over-refinement of language, 
though it yields such capital fun in Moliere's Les Precieuses 
ridicules, was here, of course, out of the question. 

Falstaff's hearty enjoyment of life does not find its expres- 
sion in empty laughter; he is supplied with an abundance- — 



°"If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, 
I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines" (1 Henry 
IV, II, ii, 19). 

'2 Henry IV, II, iv, 254 f. 



102 University of Texas Bulletin 

with, a superabundance— of wit. Though the humor of charac- 
terization, as the surest basis for permanence, is at the center 
of Shakespeare's treatment of Falstaff, and the humor of sit- 
uation, always essential in drama, is constantly made use of 
(exclusively in The Merry Wives of Windsor), the presence 
of wit is necessary if all possible sources of amusement are to 
be included. It is true that the utter absence of wit is also a 
sure cause of laughter. The absurdity of mere inanity is pat- 
ent, and Shakespeare frequently employs it for the sake of 
humor, the wit being supplied, if at all, at the character's ex- 
pense. But the extreme of stupidity, like physical ugliness or 
deformity, more quickly palls; and in a major character, and 
one who is sympathetically shown, this easier source of amuse- 
ment was quite impossible. Certainly the extreme of clever- 
ness, which we find in Falstaff, can produce a greater humor- 
ous conception than the most massive ignorance and stupidity 
that ever flourished. 

"Wit may find expression in speech or in action, and both the 
excellent jest and the cunning device are unfailing in Falstaff. 
On the verbal side his wit too often takes the form of personal 
abuse, the very essence of the old French farces (except in Pa- 
tlielin, the best of all) ; and again we must admit that this gross 
banter and raillery no longer delights us. But at its best, Fal- 
taff's wit is unsurpassed. It is placed in rivalry with Prince 
Hal's and shines by comparison; at times it is placed in con- 
trast with the witlessness of Shallow or the unillumined liter- 
alness of the hostess, just as his very bulk is travestied by the 
presence of his diminutive page.'^ His wit is not subtle like 
that of Benedick, not delicate and fanciful like Mercutio's, 
though he can speak the language of Euphues when he wishes ;^ 
it is open, coarse, plebeian — the mere consummation of such 
wit as was native to the audience. This again marks Falstaff as 
the ideal Elizabethan jester. He is not only witty in himself, 
not alone "the cause that wit is in other men"; he communi- 



7"I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelm'd all 
her litter but one. If the Prince put thee into my service for any other 
reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment." 2 Henry IV, 
I, ii, 11-15. 

n Henry IV, II, iv, 437-461. 



Memorial Volume to SJiahespeare and Harvey 103 

cates his sense of the comic to the spectators standing in the 
pit because he thinks their thoughts and speaks their language. 
His ingenuity in action has lasted better because this is less sub- 
ject to the change of taste. We still enjoy the devices of Rey- 
nard the Fox and the exploits of Lazarillo de Tormes, as we 
do our contemporary Brer Rabbit and ITuckleberrj^ Finn. 

It is a notable fact that this characteristic of an astute and 
ready wit is the only thing conspicuously absent from Falstaif 
as he is shown in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Here he ap- 
pears not as a sympathetic character but as a dupe and fool. 
He is not the purveyor of humor but the butt of ridicule. He 
is just as fat, just as cra&s and earthly, just as old and sensual, 
as cowardly and boastful, as light-hearted and disloyal as ever; 
but lacking his former shrewdness and resource he seems but 
the portly shadow of himself. This proves, better than the old 
and wholly probable tradition, that The Merry Wives was writ- 
ten hastily and to order; for the wit and ingenuity of a Fal- 
staff may not be supplied, even by a Shakespeare, under the 
pressure of an imminent production. 

But Falstaff's fertility of imagination results in his being a 
most inveterate and amazing liar. Morgann, in the remark- 
able essay I have referred to, says, "The fictions of .Falstaff 
are so preposterous and incomprehensible, that one may fairly 
doubt if they ever were intended for credit." If not, so much 
the worse for Falstaff, so far as his possibilities for providing 
humor are concerned. Shakespeare makes Falstaff a liar 
always and only for the sake of humor; he does not seem to 
care whether the lie is intended for credit or is not. If to tell 
a lie apparent in the telling is funny^ Falstaff will do that; if 
to attempt a deception and be convicted of it is amusing, Fal- 
staff will deceive;" if to swear upon- a parcel-gilt goblet to 
marry a woman whom he merely means to cozen and betray is 
to provide mirth for a rough and heartless audience, Falstaff 
will not scruple. But after hearing Falstaff tell so many lies 
as innocent as Munchausen's because they are as incredible and 



°Thus, in his account of his Gadshill exploit, where he raisers the num- 
ber of buckram men from two till it reaches eleven, his lies are 
"gross as a mountain, open, palpable"; but his hacking of his sword 
is an attempt to deceive, not humorous except in its detection. 



104 University of Texas Bulletin 

irresponsible, the audience comes to accept him and to laugh at 
him in his capacity as liar ; and hence they are prepared to 
laugh as often as Falstaff! is prepared to lie (which is always). 
When he pacifies the credulous Hostess he is performing his 
role; and an audience nourished on Ibsen could no more be 
expected to discriminate against him than one whicli remem- 
bered the interludes of John Hej'^wood. 

The same attitude which makes Falstaff a liar makes him a 
boaster also, and his boasts are treated by Shakespeare in very 
much the same manner. Some are mere palpable impossibili- 
ties and whimsical absurdities; but at times Falstaff talks in 
quite the manner of the conventional braggart, and the humor 
lies in his exposure and humiliation. It is true that he is neveT 
quite discomfited, for his wit is always sufficient to save him 
(except in the final instance, of which I shall have more to say 
presently) ; but the implication of the boast is that Falstaff is 
conceited. Now though nothing is funnier than vast conceit 
(on the stage!) — Shakespeare is at great pains to save his hero 
from such an excessive and unrelieved vanity as might make 
him contemptible or offensive to an audience. There is some- 
thing about every sort of pride but the highest that arouses 
instant antagonism, and this (if we may dare in this instance 
to deduce his personal attitude from his dramatic work — 
always a dangerous and alluring thing to do) Shakespeare 
himself seems to have keenly felt. Mere pomposity is ridiculed 
in his first comic creation, Don Armado, and is travestied again 
with something of bitterness and spite in Julius Caesar. Fal- 
staff is egotistical, yes. He is called "a proud jack";^° he 
urges with much energy that his capture of Colville may be 
chronicled; enacting in turn King Henry and Prince Hal, he 
praises himself to his own huge heart's content. Hie is rich in 
egregious self-satisfaction and self-flattery. And yet, on the 
other hand, he is capable of speaking (as Bottom would put 
it) in a "monstrous little voice;" he confesses his manifold 
sins without the least reserve; he exposes his own weaknesses 



^"1 Henry lY, II, iv, 11. "John Falstaff, knight," says Poins; "every 
man must know tha,t, as oft as he has occasion to name himself." 
8 Henry IV, II, ii, 118. 



Memorial Volume to Sliahespeare and Harvey 105 

with complete abandon. Even his self-pity and self-exonera- 
tion are given with preposterous humility: "Dost thou hear, 
Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innoeency Adam fell; and 
what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? 
Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore 
more frailty." He repents (for the time being) in a way 
which would be utterly impossible to the merely proud and boast- 
ful. Boasting so often of qualities to the possession of which 
everyone knows he really makes not the slightest claim, he 
makes it impossible for us to take his more serious braggado- 
cio amiss; for he will boast of his injured innocence, which he 
solemnly maintains the Prince has corrupted, and assuming a 
virtuousness which he so sadly lacks, he will affect to grieve 
over the sins and evils of the world: "There lives not three 
good men unhang 'd in England, and one of them is fat and 
grows old." 

But Falstaff 's boasting of his virtue and his scrupulous re- 
gard for the truth is not the same thing as his boasting of his 
courage, for this quality he seriously believes he has. This is 
proved by the guarded way in which he sometimes puts it : " In- 
deed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no 
coward, Plal,"^^ and yet the very fact that he does boast of his 
valor is all the proof we need that he is really a coward. This 
is the point m his character which is most under dispute. Mor- 
gann's famous essay is devoted largely to an attempt to clear 
Falstaff of the charge of cowardice. We are reminded that our 
comic hero is entrusted with a conunand; that he leads his sol- 
diers into battle; that he is present at an important conference 
with only the King, the Prince, and three or four others of high- 
est note ; that the famous rebel Sir J ohn Colville surrenders be- 
cause of Falstaff 's reputation for valor. Morgann continues: 
"Rank and wealth were not only connected with the point of 
honour, but with personal strength and natural courage If the 
ideas of courage a-nd birth were strongly associated in the days of 
Shakespeare, then would the assignment of high birth to Fal- 
staff carry, and be intended to carry along with it, the associated 



Hi Henry IV, II, ii, 70. 



106 University of Texas Bulletin 

idea of Courage." The same plea might be made for Sir An- 
drew Aguecheek ! 

Professor Stoll, on the other hand, is as solemn in his elabo- 
rate proof that Falstaff is a coward as was Morgann in exon- 
erating him. Both alike miss the essential point : that cowardice 
is supremely funny only when it is set in contrast with a show 
of courage. If Falstaff is not a coward (as Morgann will have 
it), he is not in this particular an amusing character but an 
heroic one, whose occasional weaknesses are to be pitied and con- 
doned; if he is the mere buffoon and poltroon that Stoll insists 
upon, he may be amusing certainly, but he is too contemptible 
to be greatly humorous. Falstaff is valorous enough to eject the 
quarrelsome Pistol, who is much more like the miles gloriosus 
of Latin comedy. "When Snare is told he must arrest Falstaff 
he answers, "It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will 
stab. "^^ Justice Shallow remembers his breaking Skogan's head 
at the court-gate "when ^a was a crack not thus high."" But 
all this, like -Falstaff 's knighthood, his going into battle, and the 
like, is only the essential setting for his running away at Gads- 
hill, for his falling do'wn and pretending to be dead in order to 
avoid being killed by the doughty Douglas, for his stabbing the 
dead body of Hotspur, for his carrjdng in place of a pistol a bot- 
tle of sack. To the King's conference he contributes only a jest; 
and at its close, showing in contrast to the words we have just 
heard from the others, he has his famous catechism on Honor. 

But the catechism on Plonor is neither the confession of a 
mere craven, as is Parolles' soliloquy before his seizure by the 
soldiers,^'' nor the silly waggery of a buffoon, like Launcelot Gob- 
bo 's colloquy with his conscience.^^ Read alternately with these 
Falstaff 's catechism seems to fall little short of sober wisdom. 
Indeed, Mr. Masefield, in his somewhat erratic little book on 
Shakespeare says: "Falstaff is that deeply interesting thing, 
a man who is ba^se because he is wise. Our justest, wisest brain 
dwelt upon Falstaff longer than upon any other character, be- 



12.9 Henry IV, II, i, 12. 

^'2 Henry IV. Ill, ii, 33. 

"AZZ's Well That Ends Well IV, i, 27 f. 

^^Merchant of Venice, II, ii, 1-33. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 107 

cause he is the world and the flesh, able to endure while Hotspur 
flames to his death." Falstaff's cowardice has always some jus- 
tification in the cold light of reason. ' ' The better part of valor is 
discretion"^** is a proverb which the sane world approves. Fal- 
staff is an old man and fat ; he has no more chance against Doug- 
las than he had against the two young rogues in buckram after 
his companions had run away. Any man who will let himself 
be killed needlessly when he could save his life by a show of 
cowardice has no sense of humor! 

In each of the qualities we have been considering, Shakespeare 
has given Falstafit' one of two equally possible humorous ex- 
tremes. I have already referred to the supercilious aloofness 
and fatuous virtuosity of IMalvolio. It is so throughout. If a 
palpable lie on the stage will almost unfailingly provoke a laugh, 
we must remember on the other hand that the humor of Mol- 
iere's great comedy, Le Misanthrope, consists largely in Alceste's 
inordinate propensity for telling the truth. Humor may be de- 
rived alike from extravagant pride or ridiculous modesty; we 
may find it in the opulent megalomania of Sir Epicure Mammon 
or in the cringing, fawning humility of Uriah Heep. The alter- 
native to cowardice is foolhardiness, and this is just as legiti- 
mate a source of humor as faintheartedness. The heroism of 
Don Quixote is quite as humorous as the cowardice of Falstaff. 
"With what magnificent courage he charges upon the windmills ! 
Indeed, the set of extremes which Cervantes chooses are through- 
out almost the exact opposite of Shakespeare's list. The Eng- 
lish knight is fat ; the Spanish don is gaunt and tall : the former 
is sensual and worldly-wise ; the latter is always visionary and a 
most lovable fool ; the one is a boasting coward ; the other is 
ridiculously heroic ; Falstaff is the quintessence of crass material- 
ism ; Don Quixote is the personification of an impossible ideal- 
ism. Between these two humorous extremes lies all humanity. 

It is obvious from what I have just said that Falstaff could 
not be without that most distressing and distasteful of his many 
sins — his open and beastly sensuality. One wishes that this sub- 
ject might be avoided; but to leave sensuality out of Falstaff 



i6i Henry lY, V, v. 120. 



8— S 



108 University of Texas Bulletin 

would be like leaving melancholy out of Hamlet. As in the case 
of his foul language on which I have touched, this is one of the 
things which offend us today, and which therefore we can hardly 
read of or witness with amusement. * Yet how vast is the extent 
of humorous literature which finds its theme in this forbidden 
topic! If, setting up his own taste as a criterion, one should 
solemnly declare that lechery is not a successful subject for hum- 
or, the mass of evidence to the contrary would overwhelm him. 
There can be no doubt that Falstaff 's fat, his foul language, and 
his moral laxity were what most delighted his first audience, and 
there is no reason why they should puzzle his last critic. If, as 
we may fondly hope, the grossest of sins has passed forever be- 
yond the reach of humor, then Falstaff is in this particular a 
limited and not an eternally humorous character ; but if we may 
not nurse this pious delusion we must consider Falstaff 's lewd- 
ness as a humorous thing. As in the case of his other charac- 
teristics — his gluttony, his unconscionable lying, his braggado- 
cio, his cowardice — the fat knight exhibits that particular sort of 
humor in this connection which was consistent with his character 
as fundamentally conceived. Imagine him if you can with the 
false sanctimoniousness of Tribulation Wholesome, or the ridic- 
ulous prudery of Joseph Andrews ! But as his lying is reflected 
in the light of his histrionic imagination, as his boastfulness is 
qualified by his naive and disarming lack of dignity and his 
cowardice by his witty interpretation of it as a worldly-wise dis- 
cretion, so even his rampant and insatiable sensuality is guarded 
from any cruelly directed lustfulness or wanton disregard of in- 
nocence. Falstaff is no Tarquin, no Jack Cade. 

I spoke of Falstaff 's character as fundamentally consistent; 
and so it is, even though he may drink more sack than is physio- 
logically possible or boast, at times with a psychologically unat- 
tainable wink. Yet a certain inconsistency, or seeming incon- 
sistency is one of the ingredients of any humorous compound, 
and hence if Falstaff is to be made exactly as funny as he can 
possibly be, this essential element of humor may not be omitted. 
That it is present, every capable critic has noted. Bradley, for 
example, speaks of the incongruity of Falstaff 's fat body and 
nimble wit, the infirmities of age and youthfulness of heart. As 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 109 

his knighthood carried the suggestion of a valor which (in spite 
of Maurice Morgann) was not there, so Falstaff 's years suggest- 
ed to the audience a dignity and sobriety which he most con- 
spicuously did not have. The sins of youth are to a certain ex- 
tent normal. What the Elizabethan audience would take as quite 
justifiable in Prince Hal would be regarded as grotesquely out of 
place in the white-haired Falstaff . ' ' That reverend vice, ' ' says 
the Prince, imitating his father's voice in their imaginary inter- 
view,^^ "that gray iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in 
years"; and with each combination, if Shakespeare's art suc- 
ceeded, came a laugh. 

A more serious problem attends our consideration of the last 
two characteristics of Falstaff which Ave maj^ regard as funda- 
mental, his cruelty and his avarice. These may well be taken 
together, since they are for the most part associated in his 
actions, from his robbery of the travellers to his treatment of 
poor Shallow. Cruelty is a thing which is not easily associated 
with a humorous character; and avarice, where it is so as- 
sociated, nowhere else, I think, is found in one who makes his 
bid for our good will and hearty applause. Where \\^ do find 
these traits in Elizabethan comedy, as in Volpone or Sir Giles 
Overreach, we are alienated instantly, as was the author's obvious 
intention. Cruelty, moreover, and avarice are appropriate to 
Falstaff 's age, and lack the absurdity of incongruity which 
would attend a youthful sentimentality and recklessness, even 
though these could have been substituted without any essential 
inconsistency in the Falstaff formula. It is much more amus- 
ing to see a man soft-hearted and absurdly lavish than brutal 
and grasping. If Shakespeare was endeavoring to supply in 
Falstaff the greatest possible amount of fun, and to keep him 
well within the good will of the audience, why did he add these 
disconcerting and unnecessary attributes? 

I venture an answer apparently quite out of keeping with all 
that I have been saying thus far: Shakespeare represented 
Falstaff as avaricious and cruel not because these were amusing 
qualities but because Falstaff urns cruel and avaricious: because 



iTi Henry IV, II, iv, 449. 



110 University of Texas Bulletin 

he was above all things carnal; because he could not have been 
lavish and soft-hearted, — he was not that kind of man. 

For I take it that no character was ever put together on a 
formula and forthwith went out and deceived the world with 
an assumption of reality that he did not have. Mr. StoU com- 
plains that with our almost religious reverence for Shakespeare 
we are prone to interpret his characters not as fabrications of 
fiction but as living and breathing men and women, and that 
We judge their actions by the laws of men instead of by the 
canons of art. But that which separates the mere literary pre- 
tender from the rightful heir is just this: the true artist knows 
his people as people, not as phantoms in his brain. Various 
novelists have recorded that their characters would sometimes 
do things quite contrary to the author 's own intention. I believe 
that no writer ever created a character who so successfully 
seemed to live as Falstaff does without giving him something 
more than the sum of his various characteristics. This some- 
thing more is life ; and in judging the actions of one of Shake- 
speare's men we do well to employ the same standards by which 
we judge all men. 

When Falstaff plans so coldly to fleece poor Justice Shallow 
and sees no reason why he should not — "If the young dace be 
a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but 
I may snap at him ' ' — ^^we resent his conduct, though we applaud 
as unscrupulous devices in many a picaresque hero. For Shal- 
low himself we care little ; but for Falstaff we do care. He has 
become for us so human and so real a character, so much our 
friend, that we cannot choose but resent his conduct. It is when 
a crime comes near to us that we feel its horror. In Synge's 
Playboy of the Western World, the peasants at the Mayo inn are 
charmed with Christy because he has "killed his da"; but when 
old Mahon arrives not killed at all, and Christy to regain his 
prestige apparently kills him in their very sight, they are justly 
horrified. It is too near to them now. "There's a great gap" 
says Pegeen, "between a gallons story and a dirty deed." It 
is so with our humanizing of Falstaff. We have taken him into 



182 Henry IV, III, ii, 355. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 111 

our hearts and our homes. His deception of Shallow becomes 
for us not a humorous exploit but a dirty deed. 

Yet if we think of Shakespeare's people as real, we do no 
more than did the Elizabethan audiences ; we do exactly what the 
author wishes us to do, and just so far as Shakespeare is a suc- 
cessful dramatist we must do so-. But the difference is this: 
their interpretation of Falstaff was no doubt of a jolly old 
buffoon who delighted them with his cowardice and sensuality 
and whose cruelty and avarice therefore no more offended them 
than it would have in such a Falstaff who lived around the 
corner. It offends us because our attitude toward life is dif- 
ferent. 

A similar explanation, though pointing in the opposite di- 
rection, must be given to the "rejection" of Falstaff by the 
young King Henry V. When Shakespeare delivers Falstaff up 
to his punishment he does it apparently, as I have said, to get 
a laugh: the fat knight's great expectations are brought to 
nothing, while Henry V stands before the audience a painted 
hero. To-day we rebel. The situation is essentially comic but 
we cannot laugh. As performed by the Stratford players it is 
quite as solemn and appealing as we now consider the final exit 
of Shylock. There is no doubt that in both instances the Eliza- 
bethan audience howled and hooted with joy — in one case at 
the just punishment of the cruel and avaricious monster, in the 
other at the sudden and complete discomfiture of the non- 
plussed boaster and buffoon. 

Now the point of Mr. Stoll 's criticisms is that this Elizabethan 
attitude is the only proper one for us to take to-day ; that because 
the Elizabethan audience howled we should also howl ; or, fail- 
ing to do that, remain critically silent, saying only that "this 
once was funny." This does not seem to me the necessary 
alternative. For it does not follow that to get a correct con- 
temporary 'view (if that is possible) exhausts the author's own 
reading of his character. "Our poet alwaj^s stands by public 
opinion," says Stoll, "and his English kings and Roman heroes 
are to him what they were to his age." He might as well have 
said that the actual people whom Shakespeare knew meant the 
same thing to him that the;^ did to one another. The supreme 



112 University of Texas Bulletin 

genius always transcends his time and creates characters who 
may by no means be judged by a set of contemporary standards. 
How many a genius has himself realized that he stood ahead 
of his times! Turgenev wrote a novel which is still unread — 
which he arranged to have published a hundred years after his 
death. 

The dramatist must of course appeal to his immediate au- 
dience ; and we know that Shakespeare was not thinking of 
■posterity, as Turgenev was. But one who writes as Shakespeare 
wrote gives forth what is in him without too complete a sur- 
render to the necessity of having his play "clapperclawed with 
the palms of the vulgar." He was one who would let the cen- 
sure of one of the judicious "o'erweigh a whole theatre of 
others." His last comment on Harry's rejection of Falstaff 
is to be found in a line in Henry V: "The King has killed his 
heart." But that still he was willing to throw a sop to Cer- 
berus, witness his speedy resurrection of Falstaff shorn of all 
his glory — (resurrection of the body!) — in The Merry ^Yives of 
Windsor! 

The same thing is true of Falstaff 's great contemporary, Don 
Quixote, his only rival in the realm of humor. Cervantes, who 
died in the same year as Shakespeare, rested no more than he in 
the narrow confinement of a particular age. The romances of 
chivalry had presented the adventures of many heroic heroes 
before Don Quixote; and though Cervantes' book was recog- 
nized as a burlesque, I see no reason for supposing that what 
contemporary Spain saw in the mild, erratic knight-errant was 
quite all there was to see ; nor because we find a deeper appeal 
in him to-day does it follow that we are reading meanings 
into Cervantes' work of which he was wholly innocent. So 
while we fairly shudder at certain things in Falstaff at which 
the Elizabethans may have punched each others' ribs and 
roared, we feel a sympathy almost tear-compelling for some of 
Don Quixote's oddities of behavior which could have made no 
such appeal to the contemporary Spaniards. The question 
amounts to just this: did Cervantes know what he was doing? 
And did Shakespeare? 

So far, then, as Falstaff fails to be completely funny for us 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 113 

to-day, he fails because he is something more and better — 
a piece of real life. Shakespeare may have set out to portray 
a comic character; but if he did, he soon saw looking up at him 
from his manuscript a living man. Falstaff's humorous char- 
acteristics may have been derived from Latin comedy or French 
farce or English interlude, but he made them his own and wore 
them bravely ; and I am not sure but that he would have been 
pretty much what he was if he had had no more antecedents 
than Deucalion's stojies. If we met a hungry hanger-on or a 
bragging bully in real life, w^e should not feel that he was what 
he was because he had been delving in Plautus. The great 
' ' source ' ' of the great writer is contemporary life ; but the char- 
acteristics of men do not differ vastly as the world wags on. 

And so it is that the comic traits of Falstaff have not only 
their earlier "originals" but their later parallels. Lechery re- 
mains to the end a constantly recurring theme in Restoration 
comedy; diminutive stature is presented for our laughter in 
Fielding's Tom Thumb the Great; the tavern-haunting squire 
fond of low company appears in Tony Lumpkin, the jolly blus- 
tering coward in Bob Acres, the witty and ingenious liar in 
Figaro. Coming down to the dramatists of our own time, we 
have the lie for the laugh's sake in Wilde's The Importance of 
Being Ernest; we have thievery, gross language, and the triumph 
of cunning over justice in Hauptmann's Der Biberpelz and 
Der rote Unhn; inconstancy is humorously treated in Schnitz- 
ler's Anatol, the frustrating of great expectations in Pinero's 
Thunderbolt, and noise and bluster in Tchekhov's little comedy, 
The Bear. 

But for the most part, the stock devices of comedy look some- 
what somber under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, and hu- 
man frailties at w^hich we used to laugh now make their bid for 
sympathy or even for approval. Thus the ridiculous nose of 
Cyrano de Bergerac, though a source of fun by the way, makes 
in the end a pretty tragedy. The coward and boaster becomes 
a triumphant hero in Synge's Playboy of the Western World. 
The triumph of worldly wisdom over heroic patriotism is ap- 



114 University of Texas Bulletin 

proved and applauded in Shaw 's Arms and the Man}^ That 
old and unfailing comic device, the turning of the tables, affords 
but little mirth in Strindberg 's professed comedy, Comrades, and 
none at all in Hervieu's Les Tenailles. Cruelty and avarice 
form the theme of Becque's Les Corbeaux, but at this "comedy" 
nobody was ever asked to smile. 

All this argues an attitude of mind at the present moment 
essentially different from the Elizabethan. Yet there is no 
escape from Shakespeare's method, which is the essential method 
of all humorous characterization. The difference is only in the 
inevitable change of taste and of the actual behavior of con- 
temporary models. 



isNote the contrast in the treatment of a situation almost indentical 
in FalstafE's having a bottle for a pistol and Bluntschli's having choco- 
late. "I've no ammunition," he says. "What use are cartridges in 
battle? I always carry chocolate instead. . . . You can always tell 
an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The 
young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub." 



THE "DYING LAMENT" 

By Robert Adger Law 

I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily 
set down. The Winter's Tale. 

Both Kittredge in his notable introduction to the Cambridge 
Edition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, and Gum- 
mere in The Popular Ballad, find it necessary to differentiate 
several types of ballads which are not popular, which do not 
belong to the folk. Chief of these are the imitated ballad by 
the conscious literary artist, like Scott's "Jock o' Hazeldean" 
and Kipling's "Danny Deever"- the minstrel ballad, such as 
"The Boy and the Mantle"; and the broadside, otherwise known 
as the "street," or the "journalistic" ballad, of which perhaps 
the best known example is "The Babes in the Wood." Poems 
of all three classes are entitled to the name of ballads in that 
they are songs that tell stories. Moreover, they are generally 
written in conventional ballad meter, and they have consist- 
ently appealed to a large class of common folk, of whom, by 
whom, and for whom most of them were written. Neverthe- 
less authorities on folk-lore the world over rightly deny to these 
ballads a place amid the poetry of the people on the ground 
that they are the possession of individual authors, rather than 
of the whole folk. They are not handed down by oral tradi- 
tion, nor are they in any sense products of communal author- 
ship. 

One type of these outlawed ballads that I have not seen an- 
alyzed I wish to discuss, making no plea for its consideration 
as genuine folk-literature, but rather as first cousin, so to speak, 
of folk-lore, showing the general family resemblance and differ- 
ing on such points as bring ovit most clearly what we mean by 
"poetry of the people." This might be called "The Dying 
Lament, ' ' a definitely marked genre of the broadside ballad, be- 
longing chiefly to the Elizabethan period. 

By "The Dying Lament" I mean a ballad purporting to give 
the final speech of a man who knows that he is about to die. 
As a matter of fact, practically all the broadside ballads of the 

[115] 



116 University of Texas Bulletin 

type have to do with a criminal on the scaffold addressing those 
who have come to see him hanged. Such speeches are sometimes 
made to-day. Three centuries ago they were more common and 
addressed to larger audiences. A fine collection of such speeches 
is found in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.^ But it is to be feared that 
these ballad-writers stick less closely to historical truth than did 
Foxe. The broadsides were written for tradesmen, mechanics, 
and the serving classes, and judging from contemporary allu- 
sions must have been extremely popular. Frequent allusions 
to them, almost all contemptuous, occur in the plays of Shake- 
speare, Dekker, Heywood, and other dramatists of the time ; and 
there is reason to believe that with them the walls of every ale- 
house were well plastered. These broadsides seem to have been 
composed by such homely craftsmen as the well-known Thomas 
Deloney, and printed on large sheets of paper, with a crude 
wood-cut generally for ornamentation. Mlany of them have been 
preserved and are to be found in the Roxburghe and similar 
collections. 

The lives and adventures of outlaw heroes have furnished a 
favorite topic for the popular muse in all ages, and it is not 
surprising that the Elizabethan masses showed a morbid in- 
terest in the capital punishment of notorious criminals. It is 
an interest existing in a more civilized age. But in the days 
of Elizabeth men wished to see and hear all there was to a 
hanging. Since newspapers did not exist, they depended chiefly 
on the ballad-makers for the news; and these balladists strove 
to give them all information procurable or inventable concerning 
an execution. To the act of hanging itself there was little out 
of the ordinary. What the ballad-readers wanted was the last 
speech of the criminal. Such farewell words are preserved in 
various examples of the ballad type I am discussing. 

For instance, let us take several ballads on the hanging of 



iFor example, note the dying speech of William Hunter {Foxe's Act$ 
and Monuments, ed. Pratt, London, 1870, VI, 728-8) ; of Stephen Knight 
iiUd., VI, 740); of Master Bradfield (ibid., VII, 195); of John Bland 
(ibid., VII, 305-6); of Lord Cornwell {ibid., V, 402-3); of Anne Boleym 
(ibid., V, 135); of Lady Grey (ibid., VI, 424); of Dr. Barnes (ibid., 
V, 435-6). 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 117 

Mrs. Anne Page of Plymouth and her lover, George Strang- 
widge. They together murdered Mrs. Page's husband, and from 
Henslowe's diary we learn that Jonson and Dekker wrote a 
play on the subject, now unhappily lost.^ In one of the bal- 
lads preserved to us, "The Sorrowful Complaint of Mrs. Page,'' 
she says : 

"If ever woe did touch a woman's heart. 
Or griefe did gall for sinne the inward part. 
My conscience then and heavy heart within 
Can witnesse well my sorrow for my sinne. . . . 

"My watry eyes unto the heavens I bend, 
Craving of Christ his mercy to extend. 
My bloody deed, Lord ! doe me forgive. 
And let ray soule within thy Kingdome live. 

' ' Farewell ! false World, and friends that fickle be ; 
All wives, farewell ! example take by me ; 
Let not the Devill to murder you entice, 
Seeke to escape each foule and filthy vice."^ 

A rival balladist gives another version of the same speech under 
the title, "Lamentation of Master Page's Wife." Some of the 
verses follow : 

"My loathed life too late I doe lament; 
My hateful deed with heart I doe repent ; 
A W'ife I was that wilfull went awry, 
And for that fault am here prepar'd to die. . . . 

"Though wealthy Page possest my outward part, 
George Strangwidge still was lodged in my heart. . . . 

"M!e thinkes that heaven cries vengeance for my fact; 
Me thinkes the world condemns my monstrous act; 
Me thinkes within, my conscience tells me true, 
That for that deed Hell fier is my due. . . . 



'"Op. cit., ed. Greg, London, 1900, Pt. II, p. 205. 
'Ballad Society, Roxburghe Ballads, I, 561, f. 



118 University of Texas Bulletin 

"Well could I wish that Page enjoy 'd his life, 
So that he had some other to his wife ; 
But never could I wish, of low or hie 
A longer life and see sweet Strangwidge die 

"And thou, my deare, which for my fault must dye, 
Be not afraid the sting of death to try; 
Like as we liv'd and lov'd together true, 
So both at once we'le bid the world adue. 

"Ulalia, thy friend, doth take her last farewell. 
Whose soule with thine in heaven shall ever dwell, 
Sweet Saviour Christ ! doe thou my soule receive : 
The world I doe with all my hart forgive."* 

The accomplice's words are given in "The Lamentation of 
George Strangwidge, ' ' part of which runs : 

"The deed late done in heart I doe lament; 
But that I lov'd, I cannot it repent 

"Wretch that I am, that I consent did give! 
Had I denied, Ulalia still should live: 

* ' Blind fancy said, this sute do not denie ; 
Live thou in blisse, or else in sorrow die. 
Lord! forgive this cruell deed of mine; 
Upon my soule let beams of mercy shine. ' '^ 

It is notable in all these lamentations that the criminal is 
made to declare the justice of his punishment and his forgive- 
ness of those responsible for his death. At the same time he 
speaks his confidence that Heaven has forgiven his sin, and he 
is assured of eternal bliss. These two thoughts are expressed 
again in one stanza of "The Lamentation of Bruton and Riley," 
dated 1633: ' 



*Roxhurghe Ballads, I, 555-556. 
^IMd., I, 559-560. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 119 

' ' Thy mercy, Lord ! is greather than our sinne, 
And if thou please in heaven to let us in, 
We doe repent us of our wicked deed, 
The thought of which doth make our soules to bleed. ' '" 

Even more assured is the criminal in ' ' The Lamentation of John 
Stevens," 1632: 

"Vaine world, farewell! I am prepar'd to die; 
]\'Iy soule, I hope, shall straight ascend the skie : 
I come, Lord Jesus ! now I come to thee ; 
To thee, one God, yet holy Trinitie. "^ 

So the refrain to "Luke Button's Lamentation" (1595) : 

"Lord Jesus, forgive me, with mercy relieve me; 
Receive, sweet Saviour, my Spirit unto thee. 

But while acknowledging his guilt of the crime charged, the 
dying man frequently mentions some other sin of which he 
might have been guilty but was not. Thus Luke Hutton in 
the ballad just quoted: 

"Yet did I never kill man nor wife, 
Though lewdly long I led my life. 
But all too bad my deeds have been. 
Offending my Country, and my good Queen. ' '® 

The best example of this quality I have met is connected with 
the hanging of a certain notorious horse-thief. The ' ' Lamentable 
New Ditty on Stoole" runs: 

"I never stole no Oxe nor Cow, nor never murdered any; 
But fiftv Horse I did receive of a Merchants man of Gory."^'* 



<ilbid., Ill, 145. 
■^Ibid., Ill, 159. 
slbid., VIII, 56. 
»Ibid., I, 580. 
loibid., VIII, 631. 



120 University of Texas Bulletin 

The explanation of this turn in so many broadsides is simple 
enough. The balladist, wishing to retain the sympathy of his 
audience for the condemned man, endeavors to show that the 
latter might have been more wicked than he really was. But 
still he, as a conserver of public morals, must justify the hanging 
and make it clear that the prisoner was rightly condemned. The 
moral lesson is frequently emphasized by special appeals of 
warning to those present. Thus a late ballad, "The Berkshire 
Tragedy," about 1700: 

"Young Men, take warning by my fall: all filthy lust defy. 
By giving way to wickedness, alas ! this day I die. ' ' 

• "The Lamentation of John Stevens," already quoted: 

"And children all, doe you example take; 
Oh, let me be a warning for your sake ! "^^ 

"The Downfall of William Griswold" (c. 1650), tells us: 

"Now, young men, take warning, you see my fault is great, 
call to God for mercy, God's grace do you intreat."^- 

Finally, "The Lamentation of Master Page's Wife" already 
quoted : 

"You De'nshire Dames and courteous Cornwall Knights, 
That here are come to visit wofuU wights, 
Regard my griefe, and marke my wofull end, 
And to your children be a better friend. "^^ 

Enough has been quoted, I think, to indicate the general na- 
ture of these ballads, and of their moral and religious teaching. 
Whether or not they contain the real sentiments of the supposed 
speakers, they undoubtedly reflect the mood of their writers and 
of the people by whom they were purchased and sung. Now a 
few items more to show the extent of their vogue. The Sta- 
tioners' Register notes the entry on June 15, 1579, of a ballad on 



iilbid., Ill, 158. 
i2/&id., VIII, 71. 
r^Ibid., I, 557. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 121 

one Halfpenny executed for felony; on July 4, 1581, "a ballad 
of Tyborne tyding of Watt foole and his felloes, of the lamenta- 
ble end they made at the galloes"; on August 19, 1584, "a. bal- 
lade of Clinton's lamentation," Clinton having been executed 
shortly before; on July 19, 1584, a ballad "of the traditor, 
Frauncis Throckmorton, ' ' executed at Tyburn, July 10 ; on July 
10, 1592, ballads on the Bruen hanging, June 28; on December 
5, 1592, a ballad on C. Tomlinson, hanged December 4 ; on Jan- 
uary 27, 1594, a ballad on Sturman, hanged January 24 ; on Feb- 
ruary 23, 1594, a ballad on Randall, hanged February 21; on 
December 6, 1594, a ballad on Banes, hanged that day.^* For 
the Elizabethan period the list could be extended almost indefi- 
nitely. But on through the middle of the seventeenth century, 
into Restoration times, till 1700 they continue. John Ashton in 
Modern Street Ballads^'^ gives two texts belonging to the nine- 
teenth century of somewhat similar moral, though not distinctly 
pious, exhortations. One is entitled, "Life of the Mannings, Ex- 
ecuted at Horsemonger Lane Gaol, Tuesday, November 13, 1849," 
and the other, "Life and Trial of Palmer," who was executed 
June 14, 1856. 

Indeed Mr. John A. Lomax has in manuscript an American 
ballad, sent to him by Mr. D. W. Gray of Hale, North Carolina, 
referring to the actual hanging of a woman, Frances Silvers, for 
the murder of her husband. She was executed in Morganton, 
N. C, on July 12, 1833. This ballad runs: 

"This dreadful, dark and dreary day 
Has swept my glories all away. 
My sun goes down, my days are past 
And I must leave this world at last. 

"My Lord! what will become of me, 
I am condemned you all may see, 
To heaven or hell my soul must fly 
All in a moment I must die. 



"See Arber's Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, vols. I and II at 
the corresponding dates. 
"Op. cit., pp. 386, ff. 



122 University of Texas Bulletin 

"Judge Daniel had my sentence passed, 
These prison walls I leave at last, 
Nothing to cheer my drooping head 
Until I am numbered with the dead, 

"But Oh, that dreadful Judge I fear 
Shall I that awful sentence hear, 
Depart you cursed down to hell 
And forever there to dwell. 

"I know that frightful ghosts I'll see 
Gnawing their flesh in misery, 
And then and there attended be 
For murder in the first degree. 

"There shall I meet that mournful face 
"Whose blood I spilled upon this place, 
With flaming eyes to me he'll say, 
'Why did you take my life away?' 

"His feeble hands fell gently down 
His chattering tongue soon lost its sound. 
To see his soul and body part 
It strikes with terror to my heart. 

"I took his blooming days away 
Left him no time to God to pray, 
And if sins fall on his head 
Must I not bear them in his stead. 

"The jealous thought that first gave strife 
To make me take my husband's life 
For days and months I spent my time 
Thinking how to commit this crime. 

"And on a dark and doleful night 
I put his body out of sight 
With flames I tried him to consume 
But time it would not allow it done. 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 123 

"You all see me and on me gaze 
Be careful how you spend your days 
And never commit this awful crime 
But trj" to serve your God in time. 

"My mind on solemn subjects roll 
My little child, God bless its soul 
All you that are of Adam's race 
Let not my faults this child disgrace. 

"Farewell, good people, you all now see 
What my mad condiict brought on me 
To die of shame and disgrace 
Before the world of human face. 

"Awful, indeed, to think of death, 
In perfect health to lose my breath. 
Farewell, ray friends, I bid adieu. 
Vengeance on me must now persue. 

' ' Great God, now shall I be forgiven, 
Not fit for earth, not fit for heaven. 
But little time to pray to God 
For now I take that awful road. ' '^^ 

Such a firmly established and popular literary form must in- 
fluence some more dignified literary types. It is not, therefore, 
surprising to find echoes of these broadsides in the Elizabethan 
drama. Three examples of such an influence will suffice to make 
the truth clear. 

The most realistic Elizabethan play I know is the Tivo Lamen- 
table Tragedies of Robert Yarington, published in 1601, but based 

iGManuscript note: "These lines written by Frances Silvers, who 
was hanged in Morganton, N. C, on the 12th day of July, 1833, for the 
murder of her husband. The woman was in a few hundred yards of 
Bluemon, Buncombe Co., when she was caught. She was a very small 
woman, though she was dressed in men's clothes, her hair cut off, and 
driving a wagon. Mr. Gray adds that he has sung the song for 
sixty years." 



9— S 



124 University of Texas Bulletin 

on several murders and executions, two of which crimes and 
their consequent hangings actually occurred in London during 
August and September, 1594. Now just before Thomas Merry 
and his sister Rachel in the final act of this gruesome play, are 
actually "turned off" (I quote the stage direction for euphe- 
mistic purposes), each makes a long speech in the exact tone of, 
these ballads. They acknowledge their guilt, though Thomas 
adds, "I could say something of my innocence of fornication an] 
adultery," warn the spectators against following their examples, 
beg forgiveness, and declare their assurance of supping with 
Jesus Christ. 

In Peele 's Edivard I, the Lady Mayoress of London, poisoned 
by Q'ueen Eleanor, makes a dying speech, the text of which is 
probably corrupt, but the wording is similar to these ballads : 

"Farewell proud Queen the Autor of my death. 
The scourge of England and to English dames : 
Ah husband sweete John Bearmher Miaior of London, 
Ah didst thou know how Mary is perplext, 
Soone wouldst thou come to Wales and rid me of this paine. 
But oh I die, my wishe is al in vaine."^'^ 

Finally, in the pre-Shakespearean Leir play, the old king 
thinks himself about to be murdered, and declares: 

"Ah, my true friend in all extremity. 
Let vs submit vs to the will of God ; 
Things past all sence, let vs not seeke to know : 
It is Gods will, and therefore must be so. 
My friend, I am prepared for the stroke : 
Strike when thou wilt, and I forgiue thee here, 
Euen from the very bottome of my heart. ' '^^ 

"Farewell, Perillus, euen the truest friend. 
That euer lined in adversity. "^^ 



I'^Op. cit. (Malone Society Reprints), 11. 2340-2345. 
"^lUd., 11. 1655-1661. 
i^IUd., 11. 1663-1664. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 125 

"Now, Lord, receyue me for I come to thee, 
And dye, I hope, in perfit charity. 
Dispatch, I pray thee, I have lined too long. 



"20 



Leir, we may be sure, is here uttering his dying lament and 
looks upon the hired murderer as his executioner. 

Though of course certain conventional thoughts will occur to 
almost all men facing a violent death, and though these ballads 
in many eases merely give expression to the conventional ideas 
occurring or supposed to occur to the dying criminal; yet, as I 
have tried to make clear, realities of experience will not account 
for their close kinship in phrase, or for all the parallels in 
thought-structure. In their borrowings from each other, and 
their incremental repetition, they approach very near their first 
cousins of the genuine folk-poetry. 

For their literary value these broadsides of course demand no 
consideration at all. But for the light they shed on the social 
history of the time, for their relations to other literary forms, 
for their disclosure of what some would call "folk-psychology," 
I believe they are worthy of passing notice. Particularly in the 
case of us who feel called on so frequently to apologize for the 
silliness, the tawdriness, the crudeness of cowboy or negro bal- 
lads which we have collected, and which down in our hearts we 
really enjoy, these cheap, old dying laments rescued and re- 
printed by reputable scholars across the seas bring comfort, for 
they make us feel a little less ashamed of what we are doing to- 
day in the collection of folk-lore. 



zoIUd., 11. 1670-1673. 

-"lUd., 11. 1670-1673. A similar note is sounded by the Queen in 
Thomas Preston's play of CamUses (1570) when she sings just before 
her execution: 

"Farwell, you ladies of the court, 
With all your masking hue 
I doo forsake these brodered gaides 

And all the fashions new." (ed. Manly, 11. 1121-1132.) 



SHAKESPEARE AND THE CENSOR OF GREAT BRITAIN 
By Evert Mordecai Clark 

The tradition of Shakespeare's pre-eminence in poetry, so firm- 
ly established even v^^ithin the lifetime of the poet, has been cpn- 
tinuously current in the world now three hundred years. That 
his works are 

such 
As neither man, nor muse, can praise too much 

was the general verdict of his contemporaries ; it is today a judg- 
ment of universal acceptation. But to follow the thread of this' 
tradition through the past three centuries is not the present task. 
Suffice it here to recall that Jonson's song of praise was sus- 
tained and amplified by Milton ; that it was one of the insistent 
notes of reviving romanticism ; that not even the heroic numbers 
of the Augustan regime prevailed against it. My general aim is 
merely to emphasize this last suggestion, that even in the heyday 
of English classicism, Shakespeare was sincerely cherished, by 
some at least, as the supreme poet of the world. 

We have just been witnessing the unprecedented pageantry 
called forth by the tercentenary celebration of Shakespeare's 
long and unbroken reign. One hundred years ago there were 
also elaborate celebrations, notably at Stratford, which indicated 
no slight degree of popular appreciation, not to speak of the 
more significant enthusiasm of Coleridge and Hazlitt. But I 
have found no trace of Shakespeare jubilees for 1716, or any 
similar evidence of popular interest in the fact that Shakespeare 's 
works had been abroad in the world one hundred years. I do not 
mean that the poet had been forgotten. Rowe's editions of 1709 
and 1714 are proof that he was being read. Nor were his 
plays by any means driven from the stage. There were, in fact, 
no fewer than sixteen Shakespearean performances at the Lon- 
don play-houses during the centennial year alone. But these 
plays as a rule appeared in strangely distorted adaptations, and 
even so did not largely attract the crowd from its f eastings upon 
personal satire, pantomime, and puppet-show. How discerning- 

[126] 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 127 

ly Shakespeare was being read outside the plaj^-hoiises is not be- 
yond our conjecture when we hear Pope pronouncing anti-Eliz- 
abethan Rymer "one of the best critics we ever had."^ The 
praise from Addison was scant and qualified, and belied by his 
own dramatic practice. It was an age of reason, rule, conform- 
ity ; and critics great and small, with one or two exceptions, dealt 
with Shakespeare mainly to show how far he fell below prevail- 
ing standards of poetic art. With strange inconsistency they 
still repeated the tradition of his sovereignty, while in their 
hearts they acknowledged allegiance to Aristotle and Horace and 
the descendants of these worthies among the moderns. Of the 
best and most characteristic qualities of Shakespeare the poet, 
England had no intelligent conception or genuine appreciation 
in 1716. 

But Shakespeare's reputation as the prince of poets has never 
lacked sincere defenders. And even in 1716, certainly the dark- 
est centenary j'car of all, there was one at least who dared to 
proclaim for the poetry of the great Elizabethan unfeigned and 
unbounded admiration, and who busied himself unv/eariedly 
with enduring service. It was Lewis Theobald, — a man whom I 
venture to call Shakespeare's best friend one hundred years 
after the poet's death. 

For the service which he was destined to render to Shake- 
speare, Theobald's early training and natural endowments fur- 
nished the best possible preparation and equipment. As a boy 
he received an excellent education ; so well, indeed, was this 
foundation laid that not even the most learned of his contem- 
poraries ever seriously questioned the scope or soundness of his 
classical attainments. Moreover, in these youthful literary en- 
thusiasms the best of the older English writers seem to have vied 
with the best of the ancients. "For my own Part," said he as 
early as 1715, "the Shelves of my Study are filled with curious 
Volumes in all sorts of Literature, that preserve the Fragments of 
great and venerable Authors. These I consider as so many 
precious Collections from a Shipwreck of inestimable Value. "- 



^Nettleton, Eng. Drama of the Restoration amd EigJiteenth Century, 
p. 89. 

2Censor, No. 5. 



128 University of Texas Bulletin 

There could be no better proof of Theobald's antiquarian zeal 
in exploring neglected fields of English literature than his re- 
markable collection of two hundred and fifty-nine old plays. Tt 
was rummaging among these and some five hundred other early 
English plays that gave him the orientation in Shakespeare and 
the Elizabethan drama which Pope so conspicuously lacked. To 
wide reading in the drama Theobald early added the practical 
experience of a playwright. But, what was even more important 
than wide reading and a knowledge of the stage, Theobald pos- 
sessed certain native elements that fitted him uniquely for his 
task. His mind was capable of clear thinking and of indefatiga- 
ble attention to detail. His heart was filled with a love of things 
Elizabethan, of Shakespeare above all: "No Labour of Mine," 
he assures us, "can be eciuivalent to the dear and ardent Love I 
bear for Shakespear. "^ Furthermore, he was himself, in some 
degree, a poet; at least, in his heart was the poet's sense of the 
beautiful, in nature and in human life. And we are told by Mr. 
Stede, of Covent Garden, who knew him intimately for thirty 
years, that "he was of a generous spirit, too generous for hia 
circumstances ' ' ; and that ' ' none knew how to do a handsome 
thing or confer a benefit when in his power with a better grace 
than himself."* Thus by nature and by training was he 
equipped to understand the most magnanimous of poets, and 
to discern in his works even that which was hidden from the 
wisest of the age. 

It would be unnecessary, even were it not here beside the mark, 
to dwell upon Theobald's major achievements in Shakespearean 
criticism; although one finds it difficult to pass by Shakespear 
Restored, "the first essay of literal criticism upon any author in 
the English tongue, "° especially as it contributed the immortal 
guess ' ' and a ' babbled of green Fields, ' ' together with some three 
hundred other emendations that have met with universal favor. 
But Churton Collins, Professor Lounsbury, and others have al- 
ready reckoned up this obligation and bestowed the meed of 
praise. Now we know, what was not known for a hundred and 



iW'Orks of Shakespeare, Preface. 

*Nicholls, Illustrations of Lit. Hist, of the Eighteenth Century, 2, 745. 

oLounsbury, The Text of Shakespeare, p. 160. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 129 

fifty years after Theobald's death, that in the province of 
Shakespearean scholarship he stood head and shoulders above 
Rowe and Pope and Warbnrton ; that to him belongs the endur- 
ing distinction of being our greatest poet's first great editor. 
But I invite attention to the earlier and less heralded service 
which Theobald, self-styled ' ' Censor of Great Britain, ' ' rendered 
to Shakespeare in a series of critical essays during the period 
April 11, 1715 to June 1, 1717. 

Theobald 's periodical, The Censor, ' ' followed . . . close upon 
the Heels of the inimitable Spectator," and, in general, was 
patterned after it. The Censor himself purported to be "lineally 
descended from Benjamin Johnson of surly Memory." He there- 
fore declared himself the sworn foe of "Nonsense, bad Poets, 
illiterate Fops, affected Coxcombs, and all the Spawn of Follies 
and Impertinence, that make up and incumber the present Gen- 
eration." "The Beau Monde," he continues, "in all its Views 
and Varieties, I seize on as my proper Province to exercise my 
Authority in; not without a particular Regard to the British 
Stage, of which by right of Ancestry I claim the Protection."®' 
The paper appeared on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, andi 
ran for ninety-six numbers. Its range of topics was fairly wide, 
some of the non-dramatic subjects being wine and wit, religion, 
scholarship, popular superstitions, female dress, the laureate- 
ship, prose style, antiquities, coffee-house types, forced mar- 
riages, Wyatt and Surrey's poems. But, true to promise, the 
Censor gave the lion 's share of space to the British stage. 

So far as I am aware, the dramatic criticism appearing in 
The Censor has never been reprinted. Yet very few of these 
papers are without interesting allusions to Elizabethan drama- 
tists, nearly a score are given over to dramatic criticism, and 
no fewer than ten are devoted, wholly or in part, to the criti- 
cism of Shakespeare. Nor is it possible to reproduce the body 
of this criticism here. But upon that portion of the comment 
which has to do with Shakespeare I shall make a number of 
observations, and support them with brief but representative 
quotations. 

^Censor, No. 1. 



130 University of Texas Bulletin 

One approaches thiiS early eighteentli-century criticism of 
Shakespeare expecting to find the earmarks of the time, and 
does indeed find some insistence upon the moral of a play and 
at least one expression of preference for poetic justice; but he 
is much less impressed with its conventionalisms than with the 
differences between it and the Shakespearean comment of Theo- 
bald's contemporaries. In the first place, it is more liberal than 
theirs in aim and method, more temperate and just in tone. A 
critic, in Theobald's opinion, should be something more than 
a pedant acquainted with classical rules. He should be a man 
of sound judgment, of candor, moderation, and humanity. "I 
shall look with a severe Eye on the Labours of my Contempor- 
aries, " announced the Censor with gruff humor. "Folly shall 
no more be baul'd in our Streets, nor Sense and Nonsense sold 
currently at the same Price, if the Spirit of Ben. Johnson 
can work any reformation." But with characteristic tolerance 
he added: "However, I shall not allow my Spleen to get the 
better of my Humanity, but qualify my Corrections with good 
Humour and Moderation. "'^ Moreover, the true critic should 
be as far removed from the hireling hypocrite as from the bump- 
tious and intolerant pedant. But the liberality and justice of 
Theobald as a critic are particularly apparent in his criticism of 
Shakespeare. Hiere there is no yielding to the tyranny of dra- 
matic rules; indeed, Theobald boldly declared that Shakespeare 
is not to be judged by time-honored rules: "A Genius like 
Shakespear's should not be judg'd by the Laws of Aristotle, 
and the other Prescribers to the Stage; it will be sufficient to 
fix a Character of Excellence to his Performances, if there are 
in them a Number of beautiful Incidents, true and exquisite 
Turns of Nature and Passion, fine and delicate Sentiments, un- 
common Images, and great Boldnesses of Expression."^ 

Holding such conceptions of true criticism and true critics, 
and believing with Shakespeare that tragedy and comedy are 
""Two Opposite Glasses, in which Mankind may see the true 
^Figures they make in every important or trifling Circumstance 



iCensor, No. 1. 
slUd., No. 70. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 131 

of Life,'"* Theobald considered Restoration and contemporary 
drama very poor indeed. His allusions to the plays of the last 
two generations are, for the most part, in the nature of strictures 
upon their immorality or absurdities in plot and characteri- 
zation. For the drama of his own day, if we except one polite 
allusion to Cato, he felt and expressed nothing less than dis- 
gust: "To look on some of the Motley Performances of these 
Mistaken Poets, one would imagine that Tragedy, in their Def- 
inition, were but a Rhapsody of Dialogues; that the Passions 
would be sufficiently refin'd, if they can contrive in one Place 
for a Perriwig-pated Fellow, as Shakespear has express 'd it, 
to rant till he splits the Ears of the G-roundlings. "" He com- 
plains that comedy has degenerated into personal satire, and 
"hopes that Apprehension of personal -Inflictions will , in time 
extirpate the Generation of Libelling Wits."^^ It strikes him 
"with a very deep Concern to find that Scene where Shake- 
spear, and the Immortal Ben, had gained eternal Glory, dwin- 
dled into Entertainments of Show and Farce unbecoming the 
Genius of a Brave, Gallant, and Wise Nation. "^^ 

As a kind of panacea for all these dramatic ills Theobald 
steadfastly held up Shakespeare and promoted, through the me- 
dium of The Censor, the production of his greater plays. Thus, 
for example, he followed up an extended critical discussion of 
Julius Caesar with the announcement and admonition: "This 
excellent Play is to be acted on Thursday next for the Benefit of 
Mr. Leveridge ; as he has shown his good Sense by his Choice, I 
shall think but meanly of the Taste of the Town, if Shakespear 
is not honour 'd with their Company, and he rewarded by a full 
Audience. ' '^^ 

I have already pointed out that Theobald was exceptionally 
well prepared, by temperament and by training, to be the 
champion of this worthy cause. But in the Censor papers we 
have something more than a priori evidence : it is apparent that 



^Censor, No. 7. 
iolMd., No. 63. 
iiIMd., No. 39. 
^2iMd., No. 31. 
^'Ibid., No. 70. 



132 University of Texas Bulletin 

Theobald really knew Shakespeare as no one else in England 
knew him in 1716. He knew Shakespeare the man. Observe the 
truthfulness of the impression conveyed by this sketch of the 
poet as he appeared at an imaginary election of laureate : 
"Shakespear, with a negligent Air, and Boldness of Spirit, fol- 
low 'd him [Jonson], with a vast Company of Minor Poets at 
his Heels, who pick'd his Pockets all the way he walk'd, with 
a low thankful Bow, and poll'd for Mr. Dryden. "^* His famil- 
iarity with Shakespeare's works is apparent in even the non- 
dramatic papers of The Censor in the frequency and the felicity 
of his quotations and allusions. "The cold Reception which a 
poor Scholar meets with,." says the Censor, "and the Con- 
tempt which patie7it Merit of the Unworthy takes, as Shake- 
spear finely observes, has made Learning an Object of our 
Fears. "^' "This fantastical Narration," says he again, "put 
me in Mind of Hamlet's Disquisition with Horatio, about Alex- 
ander's Dust stopping a Beer-barrel."" In fact, he "cannot 
avoid falling upon those fine Passages of Shakespear, . . . who 
as he drew always from Nature, gives ... so much the better 
Testimony."" That he was able, a little later, to "restore" the 
text of the plays from "the many Errors, as well Committed, as 
Unamended, by Mr. Pope"" is final proof of Theobald's ex- 
traordinary familiarity with Shakespeare. 

Moreover, it is apparent in the Censor criticism that he was 
responsive to the beauty of Shakespeare's poetry to a degree 
quite unusual in his day. I do not find any other commenta- 
tor of that time confessing to such sincere, warm-hearted im- 
pressions as the following: "My Purpose at present is the 
Examination of a Tragedy of Shakespear's, which, with all 
its Defects and Irregularities, has still touch 'd me with the 
strongest Compassion, as w-ell in my Study, as on the Stage.'^' 
. . . Never was a Description wrought up with a more Masterly 



lilMd., No. 41. 

i^IUd., No. 48. 

lejftid., No. 18. 

flbid.. No. 84. 

i^Shakespear Restored, Title-page. 

^^Censor, No. 7. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 133 

Hand, than the Poet has here done on the Inclemency of the 
Season; nor could Pity be well mov'd from a better Incident, 
than by introducing a poor injur 'd old Konarch, bare-headed 
in the midst of the Tempest, and tortur'd even to Distraction 
with his Daughter's Ingratitude. How exquisitely fine are his 
Expostulations with the Heavens, that seem to take part 
against him with his Children, and how artful, yet natural, are 
his Sentiments on this Occasion ! . . . There is a Grace that can- 
not be conceiv'd in the sudden Starts of his Passion, on be- 
ing controul 'd. ... I cannot sufficiently admire his Struggles 
with his Testy Humour, his seeming Desire of restraining it, and 
the Force with which it resists his Endeavors, and flies out into 
Rage and Imprecations: To quote Instances of half these 
Beauties, were to copy Speeches out of every Scene! . . . The 
Charms of the Sentiments, and Diction, are too numerous to 
come under the Observation of a single Paper. "-"^ He was im- 
pressed with the "beautiful Incidents, . . . exquisite Turns of 
Nature, . , . and fine and delicate Sentiments"-^ in Julius 
Caesar, Speaking of Dryden's comparison of the quarrel scene 
of this play with similar scenes in the plays of Euripides and 
Fletcher, he says : "Mr. Dryden does not seem to have fix'd upon 
the true Cause of the Superior Beauty in Shakespeare. . . . 
Our being moved depends more on the Poet's touchiug our 
Passions nicely, than our being acquainted with their Persons as 
they are recorded in History. It signifies nothing where a Man 
was born, or who he is, the thing that touches depends upon 
the Character that the Poet gives of him at first. ... In Shake- 
spear, there is a Beauty which is not in any of the Others 
from the Original of the Quarrel, which is, that Two Wise Men 
commence a Dispute about a Trifle: And in the Sequel of it 
a great many severe Truths, which they never intended to tell 
one another, are naturally introduc'd from the violent Working 
of their Passions. . . . But there is another Beauty in Shake- 
spear's Reconcilement, which is, that the Cause of Brutus 's 
giving way to his Choler, does not appear till after they are rec- 
oncil'd, to which Shakespear gives the most excellent Turn 



2oIUd., No. 10. 
2ill)id., No. 70. 



134 University of Texas Bulletin 

imaginable."-- "I never see the Rage of the Moor," he tells 
his readers, "without the greatest Pity.^^ . . . For the Crimes 
and Misfortunes of the Moor are owing to an impetuous Desire 
of having his Doubts clear 'd, and a Jealousie and Rage, native 
to him, which he cannot controul, and which push him on to 
Revenge. He is otherwise in his Character brave and open; 
generous and full of Love for Desdemona; but stung with the 
subtle Suggestions of lago, and impatient of a Wrong done to 
his Love and Honour, Passion at once o'erbears his Reason, and 
gives him up to Thoughts of bloody Reparation : Yet after he 
has determin'd to murther his Wife, his Sentiments of her sup- 
posed Injury, and his Misfortunes are so pathetic, that we can- 
not but forget his barbarous Resolution, and pity the Agonies 
which he so strongly seems to feel."-* Everywhere he is re- 
sponsive to "the exquisite Justness, as well as Beauty of the 
Poet 's Thoughts. ' '-' 

Feeling thus the power and beauty of these great Eliza- 
bethan plays, Theobald unequivocally asserted Shakespeare's su- 
periority over all other poets of the world. "Poets," he de- 
clared, "should look on Shakespear with a Religious Awe and 
Veneration; . . . as an inimitable Original whose Flights are 
not to be reach 'd by the weak Wings of his Followers. . . . 
And indeed there is not a greater Difference between the Flow- 
er of our Years, and the Beginning and Decline of them, than 
there is between Shakespeare, and all other English Poets. "-^ 
In depicting the madness of King Lear, "Shakespear has 
wrought with such Spirit and so true a Knowledge of Nature, 
that he has never yet nor ever will be equall'd in it by any 
succeeding Poet."-'^ Not only in holding the mirror up to na- 
ture was Shakespeare supreme — there were other critics who ad- 
mitted that; but even in the arts of poetic expression Theobald 
perceived in Shakespeare a superior excellence. Here Theobald 



*UUd., No. 70. ■ ■ ' "1 ^iTj^'ITI^ 

"^^lUd., No. 16. " . r 

zilhid., No. 36. 
25lUd., No. 84. 
267&M., No. 73. 
2Tllid., No. 27. 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 135 

stands out most sharply from the neo-classical commentators 
upon Shakespeare, who were forever hammering at Shakespeare 's 
lack of poetic art. Dry den finds him ' ' many times flat, insipid ; 
his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling 
into bombast. "-^^ To Rymer Othello was "a Bloody Farce without 
salt or savour";-" and Rowe concedes that Rymer "has certainly 
pointed out some faults very judiciously. "-"^ Of the school of 
Rymer is John Dennis, who " endeavor 'd to show under what 
great Disadvantages Shakespear lay, for want of the Poetical 
Art, and for want of being conversant with the Ancients." 
"There are Lines," says Dennis, "that are stiff and forc'd, 
and harsh and unmusical . . . ; Lines which are neither strong 
nor graceful. There are . . . Ornaments . . . which 
we in English call Fustian or Bombast. There are Lines which 
are very obscure, and whole Scenes which ought to be alter 'd." 
Not knoAving the ancients, Shakespeare "falls infinitely short 
of them in Art, and therefore in Nature itself. "^^ Even Addi- 
son considers Shakespeare "very faulty,"^- and he inveighs par- 
ticularly against his "sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and 
forced expressions." But Theobald has the warmest praise for 
Shakespeare's diction, imagery, and style in general. The di- 
alogue he finds "incomparable." For the "uncommon Images 
and great Boldnesses of Expression" he has the liveliest admira- 
tion. In reply to the charge of "Bombast and harshness of 
diction," he asserts that "where he is most harsh and obsolete 
he is still iMajestic," and that "the Sublime Stile, with a great 
many Defects, is to be preferred to the Middle Way however 
exactly hit. "^^ As we have already seen, he completely eman- 
cipates Shakespeare from the tyranny of rules. 

From this unqualified assertion of Shakespeare's two-fold su- 
premacy it is an easy and inviting step to the full expansion 



i^Essay on Dramatic Poesy. 

^''Nettleton, Eng. Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 
p. 89. 

'"Smith, Eighteenth Century Essays on Shak., p. 20. 
silUd.. p. 42. 
s28pectator. No. 39. 
licensor, No. 60. 



136 • University of Texas Bulletin 

of tMs thought in Theobald's edition of 1733: "In how many 
Points of Light must we be oblig'd to gaze at this great Poet! 
In how many branches of Excellence to consider, and admire 
him ! "Whether we view him on the Side of Art or Nature, he 
ought equally to engage our Attention : Whether we respect the 
Force and Greatness of his Genius, the Extent of his Knowledge 
and Reading, the Power and Address with which he throws out 
and applies either Nature, or Learning, there is ample Scope 
both for our "Wonder and Pleasure. If his Diction, and the 
Cloathing of his Thoughts attract us, how much more must we 
be charm 'd with the Richness, and Variety, of his Images and 
Ideas ! If his Images and Ideas steal into our Souls, and strike 
upon our Fancy, how much are they improv'd in Price, when 
we come to reflect with what Propriety and Justness they are 
apply 'd to Character! If we look into his Characters, and 
how they are furnish 'd and proportion 'd to the Employment 
he cuts out for them, how we are taken up with the Mastery of 
his Portraits ! What Draughts of Nature ! What Variety of 
Originals, and how differing each from the other !"^* Indeed, 
the Censor comment throws an interesting light upon the sub- 
sequent achievements of Theobald as a Shakespearean critic — 
were this the place to dwell upon its biographical significance. 
Two facts it certainly establishes : that the later and larger 
service to Shakespeare was by no means accidental ; that througli 
Theobald's life ran one increasing purpose — "to befriend the 
Memory of this immortal Poet," for whose works he professed 
"a Veneration, almost rising to Idolatry. "^^ 

The Censor papers on Shakespeare have also an historical 
significance, as they are "the first essays devoted exclusively to 
an examination of a single Shakespearean play. "^^ Moreover, 
they occupy an important place in that gradual revival of 
Shakespeare's proper reputation which began to be percep- 
tible in Queen Anne's day, and which was one of the earliest 
harbingers of reviving romanticism. I do not doubt that the 
Censor's hearty praise and advertisement of Shakespeare 



34Worfcs of Shak., Preface. , 

S58hak. Restored, Introd. 

seSmith, Eighteenth Century Essays on Shak., Introd. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 137 

had much to do with doubling the average annual number of 
Shakespearean performances in London in 1716, and with bring- 
ing about a degre of popularity for the plays outside the play- 
house by 1726 which he can describe as follows : ' ' This Author 
is grown so universal a Book, that there are very few Studies, 
or Collections of Books, tho' small, amongst which it does not 
hold a Place. And there is scarce a Poet, that our English 
Tongue boasts of, who is more the Subject of the Ladies Read- 
ing. "^'^ Certain it is that the Censor rendered a service to 
Shakespeare which the "inimitable Spectator" had been un- 
willing or unable to perform. 

As criticism this body of Shakespearean comment is not in- 
trinsically remarkable ; its judgments seem quite commonplace 
to-day. It becomes remarkable only in comparison with corre- 
sponding utterances of two centuries ago. It is not entirely free 
from the conventionalisms of a classical age. But these are ac- 
cidental and not essential. We have found that it is singularly 
liberal in aim and method and attitude toward ancient rules; 
that it springs from an intelligent understanding of the form 
and spirit of Elizabethan plays, and that it is genuinely re- 
sponsive to the beauty of these plays as poetry; that it is out- 
spoken in its condemnation of Restoration drama and the degen- 
erate drama of the day; and, finally, that it proclaims, in the 
midst of a peculiarly unromantic generation, the superiority of 
Shakespeare over all other poets whatsoever, both in the de- 
piction of nature and in poetic art. Indeed, it does not seem 
extravagant to say that the Shakespearean criticism of the 
Censor papers is essentially un- Augustan, and that Lewis Theo- 
bald was doing more than any other man to uphold the im- 
perial reputation of Shakespeare at the expiration of the first 
hundred years. 



sTShaJc. Restored, Introd. 



SHAKESPEARE AND THE NEW STAGECRAFT 
By William Leigh Sowers 

There is a frequently quoted generalization to the effect that 
the seventeenth century was noteworthy for great drama, the 
eighteenth for great acting, and the nineteenth for great stage 
mounting. But although it is true that the nineteenth century 
made remarkable improvement in the methods of stage setting 
and saw some notable productions, it seems likely that the stage 
mounting of the twentieth century will be even more note- 
worthy. In the last few years experiments have been carried 
on, both in this country and abroad, that are revolutionizing 
methods of scenic production. Of late these experiments have 
become so numerous and so significant that they demand the 
attention of the student of the theatre, and since many of them 
have dealt with Shakespeare, they are of particular interest 
to the student of his work. In the last ten or fifteen, years 
there have been scores of Shakespearean productions with 
unusual settings, made according to new principles of scenic 
effect and illustrating new theories of the function of theatri- 
cal decoration. Already the artistic accomplishment of this 
new art of the theatre has been very considerable; and the 
movement is clearly not of to-day only, but of tomorrow. In 
the present paper I shall point out its relation to the repre- 
sentation of Shakespeare. 

But before we plunge into a discussion of the new stagecraft, 
we should glance for a moment at Shakespearean production iu 
general. It can be roughly divided into three schools, the re- 
alistic method, the Elizabethan tradition, and what is generally 
called the new art of the theatre or the new stagecraft. To 
prepare the way for our consideration of this last type, I must 
first present briefly its two rival schools. 

The realistic tradition, or the Irving tradition, as it is often 
called because Henry Irving gave it its most artistic expres- 
sion, has been the gradual growth of the nineteenth century. 
Before the twenties there was little attempt at historical accu- 
racy and scenic comple'teness in Shakespearean production on 

[138] 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 139 

the English stage. But Charles Kemble with the assistance of 
the antiquarian Planche founded a new tradition of elaborate 
and accurate representation, which has been carried on in 
England by Charles Kean, Henrj^ Irving, and more recently Sir 
Herbert Tree. It reached the Continent through the famous 
German Meiningen company, which spread its principles over 
Europe, and it is familiar to us in America in the productions 
of Mantell and of Sothern and Marlowe. As the name implies, 
the realistic school of mounting attempts a realistic, histori- 
cally accurate, and generally a detailed and elaborate repro- 
duction of the life and background of a definite period and 
place to which the play has been assigned. Antiquarians work 
out details of costume and design properties; scene painters 
make studies of old English castles and halls, or sketch in 
Venice and Elsinore: evr^rything is as exact and detailed as it 
can be made in canvas and j^ipier-mache. Apparently the 
aim is to* have the stage decoration reflect as minutely as pos- 
sible the actualities of real life. 

In practice, the realistic method is both good and bad. To it 
we owe many beautiful individual scenes, especially from the 
work of Irving and Tree. Some of its great crowds and pa- 
geants haunt the memory, and the lavish antiquarian staging 
of the plays with a definite historical background has educa- 
tional value. But, on the other hand, its serious defects can 
be easily recognized. It invariably leads to lavish and overe- 
laborate mounting that too often "buries Shakespeare under 
the upholstry." Some of Shakespeare's plays cannot stand 
the weight of spectacle and elaborate mise-en-scene. The lav- 
ish decorations not only attract attention to themselves at the 
expense of the spirit of the play, but they often lack beauty 
and consistency because costumes, settings, and properties have 
been independently designed and have not been brought into 
artistic unity. Moreover, elaborate scenery puts the producer 
in an unfortunate dilemma: either he must have many long 
and tiresome waits while the scenes are being built up if he 
follows Shakespeare closely, or he must rearrange the text to 
fit a few lavish settings. He usually takes a middle ground 
with unsatisfactory results: not only are the waits tiresome, 



10— s 



140 University of Texas Bulletin 

but the Shakespearean order is not respected, and the flow of 
Bcene, so essential to a true representation, is broken up. Many 
of the defects of realistic mounting on the English-speaking 
stage are merely the result of letting makeshifts harden into 
conventions. Any one can point out the inconsistent perspec- 
tive, the unnatural lighting, and the unillusive exteriors of the 
realistic stage ; but the producers have merely accepted them 
as necessary evils. In spite of its defects, however, the realistic 
tradition, which has become a conventionally realistic tradi- 
tion, is the accepted method of mounting on our stage to-day. 
Fortunately there are many signs to show that it can and will 
be made over, through the influence of the new stagecraft, into 
what it should be — a beautiful and imaginative realism. 

The second school of Shakespearean production I have called 
the Elizabethan tradition. By it I mean the representation of 
Shakespeare's plays as they were given in his time. Of late 
such representations on reproductions of Elizabethan stages 
have become important enough to possess more than an antiqua- 
rian interest. Fortunately there is enough' difference of opin- 
ion regarding the details of the Elizabethan theatre to en- 
courage varied experimentation. Since 1881 William Poel has 
been pointing out in England the advantages of the Eliza- 
bethan stage, upon which he has made many fine productions. 
In Germany it has been known since 1889, when it was first used 
in Munich for mounting Shakespeare. And in America it has 
been tried again and again in the universities, notably at Har- 
vard. Mloreover, it mil be remembered that one of the most 
beautiful of the New Theatre productions was The Winter's 
Tale in the old manner. The simplicity yet the richness of the 
background, and the rapid flow of the action made it one of 
the representations that can be remembered with the most 
pleasure. Within the last year there have been several inter- 
esting revivals in honor of Shakespeare's memory. Forbes- 
Robertson appeared in Hamlet on an Elizabethan stage at Har- 
vard; the Drama Society of New York presented TJie Tempest 
on an old stage of unusual desigii ; and the Irving Place The- 
atre of New York gave The Taming of the Shrew in German 
on an Elizabethan stage, freely adapted according to the meth- 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 141 

ods of the newer German stagecraft. In its simplest form the 
tradition may be traced in the curtains that the woodland 
companies — the Greet, the Coburn, and the Devereux players 
— use when they act indoors. 

One scarcely needs to point out the advantages and the de- 
fects of the Elizabethan stage for modern representations of 
Shakespeare. It yields simplicity; it provides an attractive 
background that is unobtrusive; it permits such rapidity of 
movement that a Shakespearean play can be given without 
cuts. And yet many think it bare, and desire more sugges- 
tion of locality and atmosphere for the individual scene. No 
one seems to accept the tradition in its simplicity, for we 
have grown out of sympathy with some of its conventions: we 
do not admire a male Juliet or Cleopatra, and we find exact 
Elizabethan costumes out of place in some of the historical and 
fantastic plays. So at best the tradition has to be adapted to 
modern requirements, and the disturbing question is how far 
should this adaptation go. Although it is not likely that the 
Elizabethan tradition in its simplicity will ever establish itself 
in general favor, it is even now doing a valuable service by 
furnishing suggestions to the new art of the stage. And it 
may be that ultimately the new stagecraft will not only make 
our threadbare realistic method of mounting over into a beau- 
tiful realism, but will also develop from the rigid conventional 
tradition of the Elizabethans a freer, more symbolic, more im- 
aginative conventionalism. 

Now that M'c have considered the realistic and the Eliza- 
bethan traditions of stage-mounting, we are read}^ to turn to the 
new stagecraft, or the new art of the theatre. Although it is 
closely related to the t\vo other methods and has borrowed 
freely whatever good it found in them, it is a separate and 
clearly defined movement that can be distinctly traced. It 
arose on the Continent ; and in the last ten or fifteen years has 
developed chiefly in Germany and Russia, spreading to Italy, 
France, and England, and, in the last five years, to the United 
States. Although it is impossible to summarize the theories of 
a movement still in its experimental days, a few principle* 
gathered from its practice can be pointed out. The new stages 



142 University of Texas Bulletin 

craft questions and evaluates all traditional methods of pro- 
duction, and calls in expert advice in the attempt to solve such 
problems as lighting and scene shifting. At the head of each 
production it places one trained man who is to bring every 
detail into perfect harmony of effect. It plans settings not 
only for their dramatic appropriateness but for their pure 
beauty of design : decorations are not mere backgrounds, but 
symbols that interpret the spirit of the piece. Especially im- 
portant is the emphasis placed on the artistic and imaginative 
use of color and light. However, the new stagecraft has no 
one manne-r, but as many as there are producers and problems 
of design and interpretation. Perhaps we can most readily 
come to a clearer understanding of it by studying the work of 
some of the important and typical men who have used it in the 
production of Shakespeare. 

Edward Gordon Craig stands out prominently as theorist, 
publicist, and practitioner of the new art of the stage, the un- 
wavering champion of the aesthetic theatre. Still a young man, 
he does not come to the problems of stage mounting as a mere 
theorist and revolutionist. He is the son of Ellen Terry, and 
has himself been an actor long enough to form an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the stage of our time. But he is aliso an 
artist ; and finding the ordinary methods of production utterly 
unsatisfactory, he has tried by constant experiment to discover 
the true art of the theatre by getting back to fundamentals. 
In the early years of the century he produced several plays in 
London, and since then he has directed a few important revi- 
vals, but his theories have been spread largely by his exhi- 
bitions of models, by his magazine the Mask, and by his two 
important books, On the Art of the Theatre and Towards a 
New Theatre. More recently he has established in Florence a 
school where the craft of production may be learned by prom- 
ising young artists. The ideas of no theorist of the new move- 
ment in stage decoration have been so widely influential. 

Craig turns his back squarely on realism and realistic plays, 
and confines himself entirely to the poetic and romantic drama. 
He believes that the setting which expresses the atmosphere 
and essence of a play has greater truth than one that merely re- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 143 

produces actualities. He conceives scenery as decoration but 
even more as interpretation. And he tries to capture the mood 
of a play, not as the realists do by multiplying realistic detail, 
but by extreme simplification which eliminates any detail that 
ia not significant and necessary. He is artist enough, more- 
over, to make each setting a problem in pure design, a study 
in line and mass and color, that rejects entirely the old false 
perspective of the stage. More and more his settings have 
shown the architectural note, but his great walls and towers 
and flights of steps have little resemblance to the architec- 
tural designs painted flat on the flimsy canvas of the "realis- 
tic" stage, for they are plastic three-dimension architecture 
against which plastic figures do not look out of place. More- 
over, by overseeing every detail personally and by taking end- 
less pains, he is able to give a remarkable completeness and 
unity to his productions. Since his sympathy is really with the 
mimodrama rather than with the literary drama, he puts great 
emphasis on the importance of movement, by which he means 
the " everchanging working out of artistic designs in, motion 
by a group of actors before a background." 

Some of Craig's most valuable experimentation has been 
with lighting, a department of production of very great im- 
portance in the new stagecraft. The shortcomings of the usual 
methods of lighting the stage have long been known, but only 
recently have successful efforts been made to remedy them. 
Craig practically does away with the footlights and their un- 
natural shadows, and lights the stage from above or from the 
side. He does not use light realistically but aesthetically and 
symbolically: the tones of light, the shadows, the atmosphere 
correspond to the spirit of the piece at that moment and not 
to reality. By means of light he can always bring out the most 
important point on the stage at any given time. For instance, 
he sometimes arranges the stage with a crowd in front in the 
shadow and the speaker behind them in the bright light. He is 
particularly successful in painting with shadows and colored 
lights upon the great flat surfaces of natural tone that form his 
settings. Moreover, he can project designs upon his settings 
or throw images of distant trees and hills upon the rear screen. 



144 University of Texas Bulletin 

So amazing is his control over lights and so remarkable is the 
atmosphere that he can create with them that he can get very 
different effects with only slight changes of scenery. All in 
all, Graig has proved perhaps the most imaginative reformer 
in stage lighting that the new movement has produced. 

In his two books, On the Art of the Theatre and Towards 
a New Theatre, are a number of designs for Shakespearean 
plays that should be examined by all students of the drama. 
They include settings for Julius Caesar, Borneo and Juliet, 
Henry V, Macbeth, and Hamlet. The decoration for Hamlet, 
Act I, Scene 4, illustrates Craig's earlier manner: narrow cur- 
tains of grea;t height rise vaguely above a few low steps, and 
part to give a narrow vertical strip of darkness and a glimpse 
of the moon. The setting for Eomeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 
5, shows simple curtains to be bathed in warm yellow light and 
at one side a great silvery white seat for the lovers. The set- 
ting for the forum scene in Jidius Caesar is decidedly original. 
High in the background is the great crowd sweeping up from 
left to right; high in the middle distance on a rostrum above 
flights of steps stands the man who is persuadiilg the crowd; 
low in the foreground sit the group against whom he is per- 
suading the crowd. The Macbeth sceues are strikingly archi- 
tectural, glimpses of great towers, dark interiors with huge low 
arches, massive and endless corridors. Particularly interesting 
is the decoration for the sleep-walking scene. The greater part 
of the stage is filled by a huge round tower like a giant pillar, 
and around it from high on the right to low in the left curves 
the spiral staircase. For vigor, beauty, and appropriateness of 
design it ranks as one of the best Shakespearean decorations ever 
planned. Unfortunately the designs are not colored, but even 
in black and white they exhibit fine line and mass and suggest 
somewhat the atmosphere that the real settings would produce. 

In his most recent settings Craig has used portable screens 
according to a system that he has invented and patented. These 
screens he tried out at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, but par- 
ticularly in his famous production of Hamlet at the Mbscow 
Art Theatre in December, 1911, a production that many con- 
sider epoch-making in the history of modern stage mounting. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 145 

The whole decoration was based on t^ie nse of mnltiple screens 
of great height that could be bent or folded into a surprising 
variety of forms. The Moscow screens, which were almost a 
yard and a half wide and as tall as the proscenium, stood by 
themselves and could be rearranged rapidly according to a plan 
on the floor of the stage. By slight readjustment, they were 
made to form pillars, towers, interiors or exteriors of many 
shapes, and straight or semicircular screens across the stage. 
When they were used with great steps that Craig is so fond of, 
the effect was strikingly architectural. Although the screens 
were only undecorated panels in neutral tones of cream and 
gold, by skilful lighting and ingenious arrangement they became 
suggestive decorations that brought out to a marked degree the 
spiritual significance of the individual scene. In the grave- 
digging scene the setting suggested a subterranean chamber, 
wdth tombstones of different sizes and a little staircase — "the 
living world outside, the dead world inside." In the Court 
scene, Act I, Scene 2, Ilamlet was a figure in gray against the 
gold of the Court. The King and Queen were seated high up 
in the back center of the stage in the full light : in front of them 
stood the crowd of courtiers; and still farther front, in the 
shadow, Hamlet reclined on a long couch that formed a barrier 
across the stage- — a barrier suggestive of the shrouded graves 
of his hopes. But when the courtiers went and Hamlet and 
the King stood face to face, the light shifted to Hamlet. In 
the last act the screens were arranged in three deep vistas, long 
avenues that disappeared in shadow. The artistry and the 
originality of the whole production, upon which Craig and 
Stanislawsky's famous Moscow company worked for three years, 
made it one of the most notable of all Shakespearean represen- 
tations. 

But it is in Germany, more than in any other country, that 
the new stagecraft has* made greatest, progress and has been 
most frequently applied to the production of Shakespeare. For 
our present purpose the work of Max Reinhardt of Berlin, Ger- 
many's greatest producer, may be taken as representative of 
the new art of the theatre in Germany. Reinhardt had a long 
experience as a successful actor before he became an important 



146 University of Texas Bulletin 

manager and producer in Berlin. For a number of years he 
has managed one of the first little theatres in Berlin as well as 
the famous Deutsches Theater, and recently he has also been 
director of the great People's Theater. He has so educated 
a following in Berlin that he can conduct artistic theatres on 
the repertory plan with financial success. Not only has he 
been very active in Berlin, but he has sent his productions over 
Germany, and even as far as England and America. Several 
of them have been given in London, and his Sumurun has 
been presented in New York. Perhaps he has attracted widest 
attention by his spectacular revivals of Greek plays in a great 
circus in Berlin, and by his Shakespearean productions at the 
Deutsches Theater. Ever since the remarkable success of his 
A Midsummer Night's Dream there in 1911, Shakespeare has 
had an important place in the bills of the theatre. Many 
Shakespearean plays have been given, some of them many 
times, and only the war caused the abandonment of a plan to 
present a great cycle of them. No theatre in the world can 
point to a more notable series of Shakespearean revivals in 
the last five years. 

Keinhardt is not a scene painter, but a producer who has 
such an intimate knowledge of all departments of production 
that he can select the right scene painter, architect, and cos- 
tume-designer to carry out his ideas for a given play, and 
working through, them, can bring every detail into unity of 
effect. In many respects his ideals are similar to Craig's. He 
eliminates false perspective ; he insists on pure beauty as well 
as illusion in a stage decoration; he emphasizes pantomime and 
movement. But he is more many-sided than Craig, for he 
experiments with realistic as well as symbolic decoration. la 
some respects he is also more daring and less reverent. He 
frankly adapts Sophocles and Shakespeare to gain an imme- 
diate effect from a present-day audience. Be likes to appeal 
directly to the simple human passions common to great masses 
of people, and he has tried in all of his productions to bring 
the audience and the actors into immediate contact with one 
another. By building out the stage, by presenting plays in 
great arenas, and by bringing the actors onto the stage from 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 147 

among the spectators, he has tried to make the Audience have 
an important part in the play. On the whole, although he 
occasionally expresses his own individuality in the decoration 
of a play rather than the spirit of the author, and although 
he sometimes shows a tendency toward rather heavy, bizarre, 
and even grotesque effects, yet most of his work is highly sig- 
nificant, and all of it is interesting. 

With characteristic efficiency Reinhardt and other German 
producers have called in scientists and mechanicians to solve 
difficulties of staging. Like Craig they have experimented a 
great deal with light, and as the result of a number of inven- 
tions they can obtain many unusual and striking effects. Rein- 
hardt uses the footlights very sparingly, but illuminates the stage 
from the gallery and wings or from over the proscenium, letting 
the light seem to fall from only one side at once. He makes 
great use of the spotlight in emphasizing the important point 
in the action, and like Craig he employs light less for realistic 
than for aestlietic and emotional effect irrespective of what it 
would be in real life. By means of the dome cyclorama which 
has recently appeared in the best German theatres, a surpris- 
ing variety in lighting can be secured, and some of the most 
evident shortcomings of our usual method -of illuminating ex- 
terior scenes can be eliminated. We are all familiar with the 
crude convention according to which sky is represented by a blue 
backdrop, shaking in the wind, and by narrow strips of blue cloth 
across the top of the stage called sky borders. No matter how 
solidly a scene may be built up, its effect is lost against so 
disillusioning a background. Now Reinhardt and the Germans 
have used their ingenuity to get around this difficulty, and 
they have had considerable success. They curve the walls at 
the back of the stage around in a great semicircle that encloses 
the stage proper and raise them high up inside the proscenium 
in a great half dome of plaster or concrete that when correctly 
lighted gives from every angle the effect of real sky. Upon its 
neutral surface; sky and cloud effects may be thrown, and from 
it light may be diffused to the stage below. It is generally 
used in connection with another important invention, the For- 
tuny lighting system, which does away almost entirely with di- 



148 University of Texas Bulletin 

rect lighting. The lamps are placed inside the proscenium above 
the stage, and the light is diffused and reflected by colored silks 
and thrown upon the dome cyclorama or directed to any part 
of the stage. Every conceivable shade of color can be obtained 
as well as effects of great distance. Moreover, Reinhardt has 
gained very illusive and beautiful effects of distance by means 
of net curtains that are cleverly lighted. Thus the Germans 
use mechanical ingenuity to secure a more beautiful realism. 
Another device that Eeinhardt has brought into effective use 
is the revolving stage. One of the chief difficulties of realistic 
mounting is the length of time required for scene shifting; the 
waits are so frequent and so long that the flow of the action 
is destroyed. Reinhardt -has largely corrected this defect by 
employing a revolving stage by means of which scene can fol- 
low scene in quick succession. As his stage at the Deutsches 
Theater presents one-fifth of its circumference at the proscenium 
every time, he can set at least five scenes at once, and by a few 
changes he can use most of the settings for more than one scene. 
He carefully plans how many eft'ective scenes he can get into 
the available space, and builds them up solid, each one helping 
to support the others. If he arranges his scenes ingeniously, 
there is no need for any waits at all, except the one long wait 
that the German expects for relaxation in the middle of a play. 
For example in the production of Henry IV, Part I, the stage 
was set with five scenes : the tavern, a room in the castle, a room 
in the palace, "before the inn," and an elaborate setting of tlic 
country road. But by a change of curtains the room in the 
palace could become other rooms, and finally the king's tent; 
the tavern became the rebels' tent; and "before the inn" became 
the battlefield. It is scarcely necessary to point out the value 
of such a stage in the production of Shakespeare where many 
short scenes must be placed upon the stage. The revolving 
stage is by no means the only device with a similar purpose, for 
the sliding stage and the sinking stage are wddely experimented 
with in Germany. All these devices are providing the producer 
with finer tools for his work. Although the problem of stage 
mobility has not by any means been solved, the Germans hare 
done a great deal to further its solution. 



Memorial Volume to Shakes pea-re and Harvey 149 

Among the Shakespearean plays that Reinhardt has pro- 
duced at the Deiitsches Theater are A Midsummer Night's 
Dream, Julius Caesar, A Comedy of Errors, A Winter's Tale, 
King Lear, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV, 
Much Ado Aloilt Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, Borneo and 
Juliet, Twelfth Night and Macbeth. The great success of A 
Midsummer Night's Dream, in 1905 encouraged him to make 
Shakespeare prominent in the repertory of the Deutsches Theater. 
This production was in Reinhardt 's earlier manner, but although 
it was lai'gely realistic and cxtremeh^ elaborate, it brought out 
very successfully the romantic and fantastic spirit of the play. 
Among the great masses of tangled undergrowth and gleaming 
birch trees that filled the huge stage, hundreds of elves, gnomes, 
goblins, and fairies danced in the moonlight on the green moss. 
In Julius Caesar, too, Reinhardt gave a series of elaborate pic- 
tures of the real Rome of the past. But he has no one rnanner, 
for he studies each play to be mounted as a new problem and 
seeks in his decoration to express its spirit. Moreover, he is 
fertile in original devices. For instance, his Comedy of Errors 
was presented on a purely conventional stage of unusual design : 
the stage proper was spanned by a bridge leading from one 
flight of steps to another and forming an upper stage ; beneath 
it was a conventional glimpse of the harbor, and behind and 
above it the blue sky. Across the bridge, always from right to 
left, went the action, and the difficulty of making the rather 
steep approaches added to the hurry, the bustle, and the confu- 
sion of the farce. A Winter's Tale was set on an even more 
conventional stage. At right and left were placed two tall dark 
green screens, forming a deep inner proscenium': a bright green' 
curtain between the front two provided a small room, a dark 
green curtain between the rear two provided a large one. In 
these settings which merely suggested rooms in the palace of 
Leontes, the action of the first part of the play took place. 
For the judgment scene, across the back of the stage a dark 
Avail against a great expanse of blue sky formed the background 
for a great crowd. For the action in Bohemia there was a 
pretty and fantastic pastoral setting in the conventional manner, 
green grass, a tree with a bench, a quaint cottage, and at th« 



150 University of Texas Bulletin 

back the masts and sails of ships to suggest the sea. King Lear 
was set almost entirely with simple tapestries in a conventional 
stage frame : for interiors, tapestries with designs that, while 
in a way realistic, suggested early Britain ; for exteriors dark 
draperies with a glimpse of the sky or distant sea. Hamlet 
Reinhardt has mounted more than once, but always simply and 
suggestively. The production of 1910 relied almost entirely on 
very simple curtains on a stage that had been built out into the 
auditorium to gain intimacy: curtains of different designs sug- 
gested different rooms and permitted a very rapid change of 
scene. But although any of the Reinhardt productions repay 
the student of stage mounting, we must confine ourselves to 
one more typical example. The Taming of the Shrew. Rein- 
hardt retained the induction and consistently carried out the idea 
of the play within the play. After the induction Sly watched 
the action from the great stone seat on a low platform stage 
that was built out below the stage proper over the orchestra pit. 
On the stage proper a series of diminishing arches, one behind 
the other, led to a broad landscape at the back. Just in front of 
it a broad balustraded terrace, reached by a fiiight of three 
steps in the center, crossed the stage. The method of conduct- 
ing the play was original and effective. The act drop curtains 
parted to show landscape tapestries before which the drunken 
Sly appeared. The tapestries were then drawn aside to show 
the white satin hangings of the Lord's chamber farther up stage. 
In turn these curtains were drawn aside to show the whole stage. 
Along the terrace at the back, the players entered and presented 
their play before Sly with what properties they had in their 
wagon or with furnishings appropriated from the palace. The 
main action of the play went on before improvised settings of 
screens or curtains held up by the servants and changed in full 
sight of the audience. A few heavy properties, such as the 
large canopied seat and table used in Petruchio's house, were 
raised into the flies. The banquet scene at the end of the play 
was set on the terrace against a background of dark blue Italian 
sky. 

It must not be thought that Reinhardt is the only important 
figure in the new stagecraft of Germany; he is only one of 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 151 

many. In the last ten years there has been widespread ex- 
perimentation with stage mounting in German theatres which 
even the war has not entirely stopped. Many theatres beside the 
Deutsches of Berlin have given unusual and artistic representa- 
tions of Shakespeare in the new manner. But we must turn tc 
the new art of the theatre as it comes m.ore closely home to ift 
on the English and the American stage. 

In England the new stagecraft may be represented by the work 
of Granville Barker. Barker was well known as an actor, dra- 
matist, and producer of realistic plays before he undertook the 
production of Greek and Shakespearean plays in the new man- 
ner. Like Reinhardt he is not a scene painter, but a producer 
of the artistic type who can give a representation a very definite 
and unified effect. He has been fortunate in discovering Norman 
Wilkinson to design his settings and Albert Rothersteiu to assist 
with the costumes. In London his stagging of A Winter's Tale, 
Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream attracted a 
great deal of attention, and it was much discussed when the 
plays were brought to the United States early in 1915. Un- 
fortunately Barker 's Shakespeare representations have not proved 
successful enough financially to encourage him to continue his 
experiments, but even now we are indebted to him for three 
unusually imaginative productions. 

The settings of the three plays were of the same general type. 
By combining elements of the Elizabethan theatre and of the 
conventional stage of the Germans, Barker designed a stage that 
not only provided interesting decoration for the individual scene, 
but permitted so great a rapidity of movement that the plays 
could be given without cuts in a reasonable time. Just within 
the proscenium was constructed a conventional stage frame or 
inner proscenium in gold with a doorway at each side of the 
stage. Curtains could be hung along the back or the front of 
this narrow section, which formed the middle stage. Behind 
it was the rear stage taking up the greater portion of the stage 
proper, and in front of it was the platform or fore-stage built 
out over the orchestra pit into the stalls. By the use of these 
three stages. Barker had no difficulty in gaining rapidity and 
varietv. The settings did not represent locality realistically, 



152 University of Texas Bulletin 

but were rather symbolic decorations of considerable individ- 
uality. As a rule, the backgrounds were kept simple in order 
that they might bring out the costumes. 

In A Winter's Tale the palace of Leontes was suggested by 
white classic columns around three sides of the stage, hung 
with green gold curtains ; in the center were gold couches. For 
Bohemia there was a thatched cottage and a wicker fence — a 
considerable concession in the direction of realism. But other 
scenes were played before^ simple draperies hung from the inner 
proscenium, flat landscapes for exteriors and simple patterns 
for interiors. In TwelftJi Niglit also conventional decorative 
curtains were largely used. There was, however, a beautiful 
built-up scene for Olivia's garden with many steps, a stitf gold 
throne with a pink canopy, and fantastically conventional yew 
trees and garden seats. In A Midsummer Night's Bream the 
inner . stage was reserved for Titania 's bower, and later for 
Theseus' palace of the last act; and long curtains painted in 
arabesques or conventional designs were employed as backgrounds 
for the other scenes. For Titania 's bower fantastic curtains sug- 
gesting the forest half surrounded a green mound; tilmy gauzes 
floated down around Titania 's head from a great wreath high in 
the air. For the last act an ingenious arrangement was found. 
The Court reclined on couches on the fore-stage, and like the 
audience looked back at the play given by the clowns on a ter- 
race to which a great row of steps led, and behind which towered 
a row of great pillars against a sky set with conventional stars. 
But although certain general characteristics of Barker's work 
can be pointed out, only a study of the designs themselves can 
do justice to their value as fantastic decoration. Barker un- 
doubtedly took suggestions from Craig, from Reinhardt, and 
from the Elizabethan tradition, but he worked them over in an 
individual and imaginative way. AVork like his was partic- 
ularly needed in England where Shakespearean production had 
become traditional and unprogressive, and his revivals must be 
remembered as an unusually intelligent attempt to give us the 
real Shakespeare. 

The new stagecraft reached America several years before Bar- 
ker brought us his Shakespeare, but at first it appeared at the 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 153 

opera house and the experimental theatre. Its first appearance 
in connection with Shakespeare was not on the professional stage, 
but in an amateur performance of The Comedy of Errors by the 
Delta Upsilon society of Harvard, the same organization that thi;^ 
year presented Henry IV, Part II, very notably in the new man- 
ner. Two men have stood out as leaders of the new movement 
in the United States, Josef Urban and Livingston Piatt. Urban, 
who did so much for the new staging at the Boston Opera House, 
designed the settings for Twelfth Night, given by Phyllis Neilson- 
Terry in New York in October, 1914, and more recently the elab- 
orate decorations of Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Wi^idsor, 
for H. -K. Hackctt and Viola Allen. But the work of Piatt 
can best represent the relation of the new stagecraft in America 
to Shakespeare. 

Piatt, who had become familiar with the new movement abroad, 
was making interesting decorations for the tiny stage of the old 
Toy Theatre of Boston when he was given the opportunity of 
mounting ,The Comedy of Errors for the Castle Square Stock 
Company of Boston in the Spring of 1913. He was so success- 
ful that he later mounted Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream for the same company. In spite of the 
fact that a stock company could not afford lavish productions. 
the settings were intei'esting and artistic. Piatt uses a variation 
of the device we have already met, and frames his stage with a 
shallow inner proscenium pierced on each side of the stage by a 
door and connected across the top by a flat cornice that makes 
"sky borders" unnecessary. Interiors are suggested by differ- 
ent curtains hung from the back of this cornice; exteriors are 
represented by decoration farther back on the stage. A very 
slight rearrangement and relighting produces a great difference 
of effect. In Hamlet, for instance, a simple tower looming up 
on shadowy stage suggested the battlements; an ancient cross, 
the graveyard. For A Midsummer Night's Dream there was a 
beautiful setting of great tree trunks and heavy foliage seen 
through gauze. Beautiful effects were gained in The Comedy 
of Errors by the simplest means ; curtains and a few significant 
properties under illusive lighting for interiors, and a doorway, 
a walL or a cypress tree against the blue cyclorama for exteriors. 



154 University of Texas Bulletin 

Piatt's work at Castle Square attracted the attention of Miss 
Anglin, and she engaged him to make decorations for Antony 
gnd Cleopatra, As You Like It, The Taming of t!he SJirew, and 
Twelfth Night, in the season of 1913-1914. The settings at- 
tracted favorable comment in all parts of the country on ac- 
count of their beauty and simplicity. Although Shakespeare in 
the new manner had been given in the amateur and stock thea- 
ter, it first reached the regular American stage in the Piatt pro- 
ductions for Miss Anglin. 

In conclusion, I shall not attempt to codify the principles or 
methods of the new stagecraft. When dealing with a living 
movement that is reaching out in every direction in eager ex- 
periment, it is'safer to present the practice by means of specific 
examples. This I have tried to do in the preceding pages; we 
have considered not only the realistic and the conventional meth- 
ods of stage mounting, but we have followed the work of such 
typical men as Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, Granville Barker, 
Livingston Piatt, and others. From such a study it is clear 
that in many countries producers are seeking and finding little 
by little a new beauty and efficiency that, if present promise is 
fulfilled, will mean adequate representation of Shakespeare in 
the theatre of to-morrow. 



THE STRATULAX SCENES IN PLAUTUS' 

TfRUCULENTUS 

By Edwin W. Fay 

Prefatory Note: In the transcription of Greek words 
small caps sometimes stand for unaccented longs; a, e, etc., re- 
present acute longs (but occasionally grave shorts). In Latin 
words the circumflex sometimes does duty for the scroll (as 
over n) ; and a raised vowel is short or shortened. Inserted 
letters etc., are enclosed between "slants" — / /. 

The R\idens parallel ivifli tlie first scene 

1. The striking resemblance in action and mise-en-schie be- 
tween Eudens II, iv (414 sq.) and Truculentus II, ii (256 sq.) 
has not, I believe, been adduced as a means of interpreting the 
Truculentus passage more precisely. In the Eudens, Ampelisca, 
a meretrix, armed with a w^ater jug, knocks violently on the 
door of Daemones, whose manservant, Sceparnio, opens to her 
with the words : 

414 quis est qui nostris tam proterve foribus facit iniuriam? 
Ampelisca answers with 

415 ego sum (c'est moi). 

The cross old man (see Act I, sc. ii) immediately begins to ogle 
her with the words : 

hem ! quid hoc boni est ? eu edepol specie lepida mulierem ! 
Later, in vs. 428 (431), the dialogue continues: 

428 quid nunc uis? Am. sapienti ornatus quid uelim in- 
dicium faeit. 

429. Sc. mens quoque hie sapienti ornatus quid uelim in- 
dicium facit. 

The commentators (v. e. g. Ussing ad loc.) have realized that 
in vs. 429 mens ornatus intimates a phallus; cf. Skutsch, Eleine 
Sckriften, 193 : fehlte der vers 432 des Rudens, so wiirden wir 
nichts davon wissen dasz der phallus zum kostiim des schau- 
spieler's der nea gehoren konnte. 

[155] 

11— s 



156 University of Texas Bulletin 

Not a phallus, hut the sera or patihulwm in the Budens. 

2. That a phallus actually belonged to Sceparnio's costume 
seems to me violently unlikely. But he might, with great dra- 
matic propriety, have come out of the door with an object suitable 
for the gesticulation of a phallus. He had opened the door to 
violent knocking and we might even expect him to step forth 
holding in his hand the doorbar, the sera {mochlos) or the 
pessulus (bdlanos). The identical situation recurs in the Ful-. 
tones of Titinius: 

si quisquam hodie praeter banc posticum nostrum pepulerit 
patibulo hoc ei caput diffringam, 
a passage explained as follows by Nonius (582, 15), 
patibulum, sera qua ostia obcluduntur; quod hac remota valvae 
pateant. 

What the sera was like and its suitability for phallic play 
comes clearly to light in Paulus-Festus 23, 27 : serae .... 
defixae postibus, quemadmodum ea quae terrae inserunt. With 
the sera^ or pessulus,'^ with anything of that shape,^ the actor 
might easily, by a gesture, by a leer, by a pause or an intonation, 
have intimated a phallus.* Thus with an excellent economy of 
stage properties and with due realism the playwright would 
have got his effect, availing himself at the same time of a motif of 
horseplay supplied to the kaine (New Comedy) from the archaia 
(Old Comedy). 



^Serra in the sense of "stake" seems also to be used by Cato, de re 
mil. ap. Festum, 466, 30: sin forte opus sit cuneo, aut globo, aut for- 
cipe, aut turribus, aut serra, uti adoriare. As for the double rr of 
serra, Groeber in ArcMv, V, 467 has abundantly demonstrated this 
rustic form, and it ought to be restored in Silius, Pun. 13,752, obices 
munimina ser/r/a /e/, cf. munimina portae in Ovid, 'Am. 1, 6, 29. 

*Cf. pdssalos defined by posthE; and Lat. palus as used by Horace in 
S. 1, 8, 5. 

•This metaphor is of unlimited vadidity, cf. e. g. Eng. yard and 
even trolley. 

*In Trunculentus 351, (fores) quae obsorbent quicquid uenit intra 
pessulos, a pause before pessulos would make it mean quasi "mentulas" 
(as Pompeius was named Sopio or Ropio, v. Friedrich ad Catull. 37, 9). 
Note that pessUlos is here the last word in a scene; cf. commercium, 
"liaison", spoken by the same Diniarchus (§3) as the last word of I, i. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 157 

Inverted character of the first Stratidax scene 

3. In the first Stratulax scene Astaphium, an ancilla mere- 
tricis, already proclaimed to the audience as Diniarchus ' dis- 
carded mistress^ (§ 2, fn. ; § 5), knocks violently at a door which 
would be opened to her she knew by a very cross and surly 
doorkeeper (ostiarius), who hated her and all her sort (vss. 
250 sq.), but she braved herself to the effort with these words: 

254 sed fores quicquid est futurum feriam. 
Stratulax (§20), the Truculent, opens to her, crying out, 

256 quis illic est qui tam proterue nostras aedis arietat? 
Astaphium replies. 

257 ego sum, respiee ad me. 

It is quite important for her to reach his young master and, 
with an inversion of the Rudens situation, she tries to cajole 
Stratulax : given a meretrix and an ostiarius, the Plautine audi- 
ence doubtless sat expectant of phallic play. But now Asta- 
phium 's pretty speeches are of no avail, and Stratulax kept 
jawing and sawing back at her till she cried out : 

262 comprime sis iram.'' St. meam quidem herole tu, quae 
solita's, comprime. 

263 inpudens, quae per ridiculum rustieo suades stuprum ! 
264^ As. iram dixi: ut excepisti, demsisti unam litteram 
265 nimi^ quidem h'c tru/n/cu/s/ lentus. St. pergin male 

loqui, mulier, mihi? 

266^ As. quid tibi ego male dico ? St. quia en^m me truncum 
lentum nominas. 

Sacerdos' citation of vs. 262. 

4. Verse 262 had fallen into the hands of the grammarians, 
and Sacerdos {ca. 275-300 A. D.) cited the three first words, 
along with innocent instances of arrecti and testes, as an ex- 



•This makes it clear why, later on (vs. 325), Astaphium called 
Diniarchus "her abomination (odium). 
•See correction of text in §12 sq. 

'Correction of vs. 264 in §§15-16; of vs. 265-266 in §17. 
•Note the change to iambic rhythm and see Lindsay's note ad loc. 



158 University of Texas Bulletin 

ample of aeschrologia: "est verborum turpitude, non intellectus, 
"comprime^ sis iram" (Keil, GL. VI, 453, 19) .... per cacem- 
phaton, ut est illud Plautinum "eqinprime sis iram"; nam 
rem turpem sonat utpote a meretricis ancilla dicta oratio" {ih. 
461, 25). That comprinie was the ugly word in this citation is 
generally assumed but, if we note Horace, S. 1, 2, 71, Sacerdos 
may just as well have had irmn in his mind. Or the abbreviated 
citation bears the character of the whole line and the alleged 
ugliness really lies further on in the retort of Stratulax, where- 
in even the pale word solita, if the least intoned in utterance, 
was suggestive of lewdness; while the words meam .... corn- 
prime are, as we shall have to see (§13), highly indecent. 

Error in text and current interpretation of vs. 262 

5. It is clear from the language of vs. 264 that the equivoque 
in vs. 262 consisted in using two words reasonably identical in 
sound, the one of which contained a letter less than the other. 
Accordingly, iram has been spelt as /e/iram (ei^=e, or close ei) 
and (ni)eam, altered to e/r/an. To me the words eram corn- 
prime, as addressed to Astaphiuni, seem worse than pointless, 
however Plautine aliquem comprime, spoken of master and man 
(but not conversely), would have seemed (v. exx. ap. TJies. LL. 
Ill, 2159, 66 sq.). To the discarded mistress of Diniarchus (see 
his boast in vs. 94, cum ea quoque etiam mihi fuit commercium) 
earn, comprime (quam solita' s) would have point, if referring to 
a- bauhdn (cf. Meister, Herond. 6, 19 and p. 859) ; and the 
grossly insulting meam comprime (§13) is a retort of great 
point; but a reference in eam to Phronesium, Astaphium's mis- 
tress, seems quite absurd. Even the converse taunt against 
Phronesium w^ould be excluded, for that meretrix was other- 
wise fully engaged. 

Harking hack to ^3 

6. At a 'Plautine play, when an ancilla meretricis had sum- 
moned to the door a surly old ostiarius, the audience undoubt- 



*Ms. reprime, which may be right, §12. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 159 

edly sat expectant of phallic play. But in our scene the comic 
poet attains to uproarious mirth by letting the ostiarius repulse — 
and that with phallic gesticulation — the advances of the ancilla 
meretricis. To Astaphium it was most important to get past . 
the ostiarius, Stratulax, in hopes of effecting a rencounter with 
Strabax, his young master, to whom the old servant played as 
it were the part of chaperon. To secure her end she was ready 
to make Stratulax any advances. To the audience, her discom- 
fiture must have afforded a situation very rare in the nea 
(kaine) or in life, one of the inverted situations that overwhelm 
with surprise and produce boisterous glee. 

The contro'-scene, Truculent us, III, ii 

7. The proof that our scene has the inverted situation just 
described is furnished later on by a contra-scene (III, ii), in 
which Stratulax cuts the usual figure by beginning to ogle 
Astaphium. By a review of the counterscene we shall put our- 
selves into a position to understand the original scene and shall 
learn how to correct its text where the actors and grammarians 
went astray. Be it here remembered that our play owes its 
name of Trucuhntus to the violent character of Stratulax (§26) ; 
and entirely owes its individuality to his two appearances upon 
the stage. In his first appearance he shares in a dialogue of 
but 66 lines; in his second, of but 33.^" We are accordingly 
justified in expecting to find these. brief scenes crammed full of 
siguifieance and overflowing with verbal quip. 

Analysis of the contrascene 

8. In the counterscene, in his very first remark to Asta- 
phium (673), Stratulax disavows his former fierceness; in the 
next (675), he offers to kiss her; next," he professes an entire 
change of character, 



^Tt Is vfery curious— but perhaps not significant — that, in the P Mss. 
of Plautus, these scenes, exclusive of the sceneheads, would have filled, 
the one precisely two pages, the other an even page of the manuscript. 

"Cf. also, 673 nimio minus saeuos iam sum, Astaphium, quam fui, 
674 iam non sum tru/n/cu/s/ lentus: noli metuere. 



160 University of Texas Bulletin 

677 nouos omnis mores habeo, ueteres perdidi. 

678 uel amare possum uel iami scortiim ducere. 

In vs. 678 we must attach every importance to the words 
possum and iam, especially as, in her answer, Astaphium re- 
mains a little unconvinced, 

679 lepide mecastor nuntias : sed die mihi 

680 haben[t] — ? St. paxillum^- te fortasse dicere? 

That in 680 Astaphium hesitated to complete her outrageous 
question, designed to probe the new powers alleged by Stratu- 
lax in 678, is most likely, though it is possible that here, as in 
the corresponding verse of the original scene (262), Stratulax 
rudely interrupted. The motive of his interruption would 
have been to counter, by means of te fortasse dicere?, on As- 
taphium 's corrective dixi in vs. 264. Note Astaphium 's reply 



^For paxillum te the Mss. read parasitumet. The sense of paxillum is 
the sense of palus as cited in §2, fn. Schoell first corrected (editio maior. 
p. 108) to peculhim te; afterwards {ed. minor VII, p. xiii) to pars si 
tuniet, wherein si is bad Latin. Either correction is tantamount in 
sense to paxillum, as the whole point of the lines is to render proof 
that Stratulax has passed out of his amorous lentitude (§ 9). Palaeo- 
graphically, parasitum would easily arise from paxillum, (or even 
pasilhtm, cf. the spellings of paiixilluvi in § 9 fn.), spelt pacsilum as, 
in Vergil G. 4, 199, nee sibus is written for nexibus (see Havet, Manuel 
de Critique Yerbale, §1061). With the riddlesome pacsilum before his 
eyes, the scribe guessed par/a/situm. Cf. on C/R Persa, 594, where 
ILLEDORTUS stands in A for ille doctus; Merc. 59, where conuirium 
in the P Mss. — B's coniurium, in spite of a recent mistaken defense, 
is worthless — is for conuicium; True. 104, where B reads fector' for 
fartor{es). This change from C to R may have gone through P (cf. 
Havet, op. cit. §§607, 609). — Besides paxillum te a number of other 
good ductus emendations for parasitumet present themselves: (1) 
pruritum te. See usage of prurio and perprurisco in the closing scene 
of the Stichus; on the a/u confusion in Caroline minuscules, Alcuin 
as cited by Lindsay, Latin Textual Emendation pp. 83-84; Havet, §6; 
for s/r cf. Cure. 318, Os amarum for Gramarum; Mo. 28, semet for 
rem, et. Havet (621) pronounces this a characteristic confusion. (2) 
pardlysin te (or liah^n: pdralysis tenet te?), with paralysis used as in 
Petronius, § 129 sq. We further have, scanning liahen, (3) pars tumet 
/mi, t/e; (4) pdrastatam te {p.-=-'testiculum'') ; (5) seram tume/nte/ 
t/e/ {sera as in § 2); (6) paresis tenet me te (for paresis cf. paretois 
. . m,elesi, Anth. Pal. V, 55, a century before Plautus. 



Memorial Volume to STiakespeare and Harvey 161 

681 intellexisti lepide quid ego dicerem, 

("what I was to say, meant to say," cf. § 16). WMchever cor- 
rection we accept for parasitumet the whole context insists on 
the fact of Stratulax's renewed or released virility. 

Stratulax' new-ivon urbanity; caullator=paxilli later 

9. In his next speech, countering Astaphium's taunt of rus- 
ticity {rus merum, 269), Stratulax asserts his new-won urban- 
ity (and wit). 

682 St. heus tu, iam postquam in urbem crebro coimneo 

683 dicax sum f actus: iam sum cau[il]lator probus. 

684 As. quid id est, amabo? istaec ridicularia. 

685 cauillationes uis, opinor, dieere/?/-^^ 

Here the equivoque lies in caidlator, long since correctly ex- 
plained as a humorous formation based on caulis/caida 
(colis/cola, cf. colicula) "mentula, " so that caidlator^*=qnasi 
"rnentulatus. " This definition is certified by the hitherto mis- 
understood, or only half-understood, retort in 

686 St. ita, ut pafujxillum differt a cauillibus 

Well, about as a — peg differs from a ga-g-gabbage. 
Here paxillwn}^ not only vindicates paxillum in 680, but serves 
as a throwback to the se(r)ra or pessidus of the original scene 
(§§ 2 sq.). 

687 As. sequere intro amabo, mea uoluptas[t]. St. tene hoc 
tibi! 

Here hoc is precisely the paxillum of vs. 686. 



"Countering te fortasse dicere? in 680. 

"Probably not a genuine compound cauli-lator (i. e. "paxilli lator"), 
thugh peculattor is, I take it, due to symphysis, witli haplology, of 
peculli} lator. 

"The copyists of P and the P precursors pronounced pauxillum as- 
paxillum; cf. the glosses paxillum mensura est modica uel palus qui 
in pariete figitur; pasilhim parvum. It follows that genuine paxillum, 
especially when contiguous to differt (cf. paulum differf, etc.), might 
contrariwise be transcribed pauxillum. For the neuter form of the 
glossic word note that Varro ap. Nonium 219, 19 uses palum. 



162 University of Texas Bulletin 

The quip on (ar)rabo 

10. Stratulax continues : 

688 rabonem habeto, uti mecum hanc noctem sies. 

689 As. .perii, "rabonem," qiiam esse dicam banc beluam? 

690 quin tu arrabonem dicis[t] ? St. "ar" facio lucri, 
ut Praenestinis "conea" est ciconia. 

The ellipsis (procope) of ar is meant to counter on Astaphium's 
quip on double rr in vs. 264 (§§ 15-16). 

Return to the original scene (II, ii) 

11. So much for the phallic play and Stratulax' renewed 
virility in the counterscene. Let us return to the original 
scene, where Stratulax has come to the door, armed ( ex hypo- 
tliesi) with the sera (§ 2). He has scorned Astaphium's ad- 
vances, which were verbally timid and, as she always seems, 
decent, perhaps even restrained, in gesticulation. But what- 
ever she said he kept retorting, by way of jawing and sawing, 
till she cried out 

262 reprime (Sacerdos) sis iram, eic. — corrected 

12. The words sis iram (A reads COMPRIMESISmAM) 
are" profoundly, however simply, corrupt, even though they 
seem to make an obvious and quite appropriate sense. But it is 
hard to see — a point, it would seem, that the editors have never 
even raised — how, instead of SISIRAM the P Mss. came to 
read spero (Spero). As regards reprime or comprime, I had 
almost as lief retain the one as the other, but incline to reprime 
(1) because reprime seems liable to assimilation to the corn- 
prime of the retort; and (2) because the Greek original, as will 
appear later (§ 13), seems to have had anische retorted by an^ 
tSchoiL For spero I read serra.wi^=" obiurgationem, " as found 
in the locution serra^n ducere (Varro, r. r. 3, 6, 1, Fircellius, 
qui — ^tecum duceret serram : Sat. Menipp, 329, cum portitore ser- 
ram duxe). In the P precursors, thanks to a copyist's partial 
isolation of se as a word, serram would have been transcribed 



Memorial Volume to SJiahespeare and Harvey 163 

as seprd,^° and afterwards made into the word spero." In 
the A and Sacerdos' tradition, SISIRAM originated from 

SER(R)AM, glossed asJ V ; or quite independently, the 

copyists, to whom se(r)ram was a hopeless riddle, got it down 
with dittography as SISIRAM/^a j^ jg ^q ^j^g reading siram (for 
serram) in the grammatical tradition prior to Sacerdos that we 
owe the gloss sirsi, saura,^^ td\aidoion; though seird, "rope" may, 
like schoinion (§ 17), have been derisively used for "mentula." 



^"On P/R (see also § 8 fn.; cf. Lindsay, TE. p. 87; Havet, 1. c. § 609 
(§§582, 808). For inscriptional confusion of P/R see Sclineider, dial. 
lat. prise, p. 129. 

"On o for a in the TrucuJentus Mss. see e. g. the transcriptions of 
the name of Stratophanes in §22, below. In the scenehead of Trinummus 
II, ii A reads PILTA for PHILTO. On — a and — o cf. also curo/cura 
in Horace, C. 1, 38, 6. In the inversion of seprd to spero the inter- 
changeability of P with E may have played a part, cf. Mo. 967, where 
[a'lmeHus replaces amplius in the P Mss.; and see 'AJPh. 31, 84 

"aThere is no limit to the palaeographic interchangeability of E with 
I. What Varro remarks (Z. I. 9, § 105 sq.) about the liability of the 
copyists to confound the terminations E and I applies eqiially well 
to the transcription of E and I in any rare or recondite word; and 
editors who correct Varro's lavare/i (in True. 323) to lavere have 
simply never read their Varro. Dittography in manuscripts is as little 
subject to limitation as the E/I shift. Thus in True. 380 A reads 
DUMUIUIXI for dum uixi; and in 257 the P Mss. read tetiM for UM. 
For dittography in inscriptions, scarcely less common than in manu- 
scripts, see no's 2 and 72 in Diehl's Altlateinische InscJiriften. 

"On saiira "lizard," whence "mentula," see Heraeus in 'Archiv. 12, 
266. But Heraeus goes too far in explaining purpurilla as anything 
but a scribes' fault (P/T) for turturilla; cf. for P/T Mo. 842, where B 
reads trctium for pretium; S. 87, MULPA (in A) for multa; further 
examples in AJPh. 31, 84. That turturilla should mean "the place of 
the Dovies" would seem easy enough if scholars had but bethought 
them of the Greek usage of hoi ichthUs ("the fishes"), hoi ornithes 
and td ornea ("the birds") for the fish and bird stalls in the markets; 
cf. Catullus, 55, 4, where in OTnnihus libellis=apud omnes librarios. 
On turtur cf. Buecheler in 'ArcMv, 2, 116, where note is made of the 
continuous expurgation to which modern lexica have been subject. 
Obscenities like "Duke," which recently fell under my eye, have -next 
to no chance of ever being recorded, though the example represents 
a class. 



164 University of Texas Bulletin 

Further corrections of vs. 262 

13. To Astaphium 's hesitant reprime serram Stratulax, per- 
haps with rude interruption, retorted 

262 meam quidem hercle tu, quae solita's, comprime. 
Here the P reading nheiam (so. sermn, i. e. "mentulam") is 
right. The indecency of the retort is somewhat softened by the 
euphemistic ellipsis with meam.,'^^ and the insult in quae solita's, 
quasi "thou expert quean," is likewise euphemistic. In the 
Greek original meam, comprime may well have been represented 
by toud' antScJiou, a locution actually found in this sense, ellip- 
sis and all, in Aristophanes' Ach. 1120. I conjecture also that 
toud' anteckou, retorts, in the original Greek, Astaphium 's 
anische{s) stulon (§ 31). 

Stratulax' retort in vs. 263 

14. 263, inpudens quae per ridiculum rustico suades stuprum. 
Here nothing need be said save that stuprum quite adequately 
corresponds to the interpretation already given to reprime 
se(r)ram (§13). 

Correction of vs. 264, the last half 

15. This verse is extremely corrupt. It goes as follows: 

A [As.] IRAMDIXI/S^f/TDECEPISTIDEMSISTIUNAMLIT- 

TERAM 
B iram dixi ut esse eepisti sidem sistun alteram 

CD iram dixi ut esse eepisti fidem si est una altera. 

After noting that in A decepisti may OAve its de- for ex- to antici- 
pation from demsisti, I follow Lindsay and others in explaining 
P's esse as due to a ligature writing of ex- confounded with the 
ligature for et (ef. e. g. Plavet 1. c. §721), and then for esse. 
But, to proceed curtly, I would read as follows the last half of vs. 

"The A reading earn perhaps suggests hanc in Ovid, Am. 3, 7, 73; ista 
in Priapea 56, 3; earn in Petronius 132, 7; ilia, ib. 11. Friedrich ad 
Catull. >64, 145 has a long list of similar indefinites such as aliquid, a 
thoroughly modern idiom. 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 165 

264 exeepsti uiiam /r/-° litteram 
From glossal interpretations of exeepsti arose excepisti and 
[si] demsisti. 

Correction of vs. 264; the first half 

16. This leaves us in A for the first half of our line 
264 /As./ IRAMDIXI^f/T 
where for SUT Loevve thought that he saw VTTE. As regards 
sut, if Ave consider the lacerations indicated in Studemund's 
apograph, we might perhaps restore STIL (or -T, miswritten 
or misread for original -L; TI is for V, § 25). Before exeepsti 
the AP precursors had, I surmise, STRATILAX, but the proper 
name in the text had been reduced hj skipping and haplogra- 
phy to S[TRA]TIL[AX]EXCEPSTI. Accordingly, inserting 
duxe after the Varro citation of § 12, I thus restore the first 
half of the verse : 

264 As. /s/er(r)am-^ /duxe/ dix/e/i, Stratilax. 
Here Astaphium, haridng back to vs. 262, completes, with some 
repel ition, her interrupted sentence, reprime serram — ,-^ in the 
form serram duxe. For the construction of reprime . . duxe 
cf. Ennius' Ann. 294, audere (i. q. audaciam) repressit. li 
Cicero could Avrite reprimere susceptam ohiurgationem we need 
not question reprime serram in Plautus. And as Plautus does 
say comprime orationem {iwcenv) we may not, on principle, 
exclude from his text comprime orationem, facere, or even corn- 
prime niociferari. It would be hypercritical, because of the 
tense of dixi (see on dioerem §8), to object that as Astaphium 
repeats only serram she may not complete her interrupted 
phrase by adding duxe. Indeed, her correction must also look 



^'The inserted r might be defended by the a of alteram in CD. On 
a/r cf. Most. 363, where the P Mss. have aeclit for reclit; see also Havet, 
1. c. § 618. My interpretation of the passage in no wise depends on the 
actual insertion of this r, but it seems to me to supply a basis later on 
for the procope of a?- in 'rado (vs. 689, §10). 

"'The extra si in B's siclem (§ 15) is not likely to have come from 
ser{r)am glossed as siram. It is more likely to have got in from the 
preceding St{ratilax), reduced somewhere in the text transmission to 
a nota personae (§24). 



166 University of Texas Bulletin 

to Stratulax' meam /seram/, and she had to reiterate serram 
with a sharp double r to bring out the trick she had put upon 
the rustic (§ 2, fn.) in using the word serna — and here Plautus 
added a quip the more to his original — which Stratulax was 
sure to understand of the ser(r)a-''' in his hand. As regards the 
tense of reprime duxe, it is perhaps adequately accounted for by 
a negative imperative turn like noli d&vellisse (Poen. 872) ; but 
it may be- remarked that any action must be in progress before 
it can be made to cease. Accordingly, the active turn reprime 
duxe corresponds to the passive reprime susceptam orationem; 
ef. desistat (0. 0. for desiste) combined in an elegiac epitaph 
with the perfect infinitive sollicitasse (Buecheler, Carm. Epigr., 
1212, 13). 

On the reading truncum lentum in (265-) 266 

17. It remains to explain vss. 265-266, and especially the 
curious reading truncutn lentum^ (266), strongly confirmed by 
the quips with the paxillum in the counterscene (§ 9). Asta- 
phium went on, after excepsti imam, /r/ litteram, with 

265 nimi^ quidem yc tru/n/cu/s/ lentus[t]. St. pergin 
male loqui, mulier, mihi[es] ?-^ 

266. As. quid tibi ego maledico? St. quia enim me truncum 
lentum nominas.^* 

In these lines we have the advance provocation for the play 
with the paxillum in the counterscene (§ 9), where Ussing 
rightly — as Lindsay cautiously admits — read vs. 674 as iam 
non sum tru/n/cu/s/ lentus, etc. (§ 8 fn.). For the interpre- 
tation of truncum lentwn in 266 Leo made in his edition the 
apposite reference to truncus iners iacui in Ovid, A7)t. 3, 7, 



^'The etymology of serra "saw" has not been settled. The word is 
related with the root siiv')er in sermo, and the tool was named from 
its grating buzzing humming. The double r, if not simply hypocoristic, 
will come from a rootstage ser-s (broken reduplication). Or the primate 
was reduplicated sesera, whence ser{e)ra, with syncope of the penulti- 
mate vowel. 

^^This es of the P Mss. represents the illcopied nota As. of vs. 266. 

"In the P Mss. nomines. Is -es a second copying of the marginal 
word es at the end of 265? 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 167 

15 f^ but for lentus express reference should also be made to 
Priapea, 83, 33 /mentula/ angue lentior (cf. schoinion "rope" 
used in Aristophanes, Vesp. 1342 for a "mentula lenta"). Also 
cf. lentae salices in Petronius, § 132, 11. In the counter situa- 
tion of True. Ill, ii (§ 7) all the insistence is on Stratulax' 
renewed virility, and there the action is suited to the word by 
the obvious horseplay with the paxiUum. In the first scene 
there was doubtless a similar inverted action. In vs. 262, with 
the words wieolw comprime, Stratulax had reached out to Asta- 
phium the sera (doorbar) in his hand, and she pronounced it 
(vs. 265) a truncus lentus (i. e., ou tetulomenos; cf. eu tetulom- 
enon hoplon, Anth. Plan. 242), that is the sera — as opposed to the 
ferren sera of Persa 572 — was without a ferule and relatively 
flexible. So in the ejaculation and retort of vss. 265-266 we 
nuist read, with proper insertions, 

265 As. nimi^ quiclem h^c tru/n/cu/s/ lentus. St."^^ pergin 
male loqui, mulier, mihi? 

266 As. quid tibi ego maledico? >S'^. quia enim me truncum 
lentum nominas.-'^ 



^'In connection with Truculentus II, ii, which but harps on Stratulax' 
"amorous lentitude, the whole of Am. 3, 7 should be read. Petronius 
also deals with the same situation in §127 sq. 

"''This nota personae was caught up in the text. A reads truculentusi ; 
the P Mss. truculentus. Cf. also § 24. 

"The A reading is truncum lentum. Goetz and Schoell (ed. Min. vii, 
p. x) scorn it and jeer at its defenders. After Buecheler, they hold 
that truncum l&yitum, which does in fact fall on the top line of a page 
in A, is due to the copyist's taking over from the pagehead the scroll- 
writing of the title line TRU'CU — which does not altogether account 
for the -m of truncum. Granting that the title line belonging to the 
rubric was written before the text, it would still seem far from credible 
that the copyist pronounced, and pronouncing miscopied, it as TRUNCU. 
It seems highly credible on the other hand that, if the original 
Astaphium said in vs. 265 nimis quidem hie truncus lentus, sub- 
sequent actors or readers, after final s began to make position, 
should have emended, particularly under the spell of the name of the 
play, to the traditional tru\^h-\culentus. Without going so far back, 
however, the copyist of the A precursor, with the title Truculentus in 
mind, might have transcribed TRVNCVS as TRVCVS/TRVCV(S) ; or 
in transcribing VN he might have skipped to the V part of N. 



168 University of Texas Bulletin 

Summary of the preceding argurnent 

18. So far the following points have been made : 

(1) That for the phallic play of Budens II, iv, the actor 
availed himself of the doorbar or doorpeg {sera or 

patihulum: or pessulus). 

(2) That in Truculent us II, ii, in the like situation be- 
tween an ostiarius (Stratulax) and an anoilla meretricis 
(Astaphium), like (or here inverted) phallic play with 
the sera or pessulus was to be expected. 

(3) That in the contrascene of the Truculentus (III, ii), 
phallic play with the paxillum (cf. § 9, vs. 686) is cer- 
tainly indicated; while the whole point of the scene 
turns upon Stratulax' amorous revivification. 

After these points made it has been argued 

(4) That amorous lentitude on the part of The Truculent 
is the dominant note of the first scene between Stratulax 
and Astaphium; the dramatic business being managed 
with a serra or patihulum, which Astaphium derisively 
called a truncus lentils. 

The Name Stratulax 

19.- "We are now in a position to begin the discussion of the 
name S[TRA]TIL[AX] as restored to the text in § 16; and 
to see if it lends confirmation to the dramatic play with the 
sera (truncus) or pessulus (paxillum). 

Evidence for the name Stratulax (P Mss., Stratilax) 

20. In spite of "authoritative" denials to the contrary, if 
duly weighed, the evidence for the nomen personae Stratilax — 
rightly retained (pace Lindsay) by Goetz and Schoell — is as 
strong as any evidence for a nota can be in P. Nor, if the name 
ever occurred in the dialogue — as in fact I restore it in vs. 
264 — 'Could the P evidence be doubted. The fact that in A the 
nomen is solely Truculentus does not constitute valid counter 
evidence because, in view of the name of the play, which was 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 169 

current in the time of Cicero {de Amic. § 50) and Varro 
il. I. vii, 70), the designation of Stratulax as iruculentus ser- 
uos may have yielded to Truculentus, seruos. Just so in P 
the name of Pseudulus gives place in one scene head to Seruos 
ehrius (cf. Lindsay, Ancient Editions of Flautus, p. 96^). 

The nomina peronarum in P 

21. The nomina personarum of the Truculentus include, be- 
sides Stratilax, Strtatophanes and Strahax. This made the dis- 
position of the abbreviated notae personarum difficult, and the 
name Stratilax has been explained away as a mere misreading 
for Strauax-^ {u, i. e. v; for &). But this explanation falls 
short for STRATILAX by one straight-shank letter (T I L; on 
V|TI see § 25). In Act III, sc. i, Strabax and Astaphium hold 
a dialogue and in C the nomina personarum stand 

STRATILAX-'' (D^ STRATI LAX) SERVUS ANCILLA 
Just 22 lines off the nomina in sc. ii occur as 

ASTAPHIUM SERVUS ANCILLA^" 
In B the nomina for Act II, sc. i, are Stnatilex RUSTICUS" 
ANCILLA, preceded at the end of the previous scene by Tru- 
culentus Astaphium. These facts signify that in the P Mss. the 
scenehead of Act II, sc. ii, had been transposed forward and 
put over sc. i. Now as the P precursor designated by Lindsay 
as P^ had 19 lines per page in the Epidicus, 20 in the Casina 



"We might almost as well, where the nomen Astaphium replaces 
Stratophcmes (§§ 22-23), set that confusion down solely to a mistaken 
ductus transcription. 

"For Stratulax, due to the separation of 8TRATV, Latinized to 
strati; cf. the misdivisions of the name Stratophanes in § 22 fn. 

"For STRAT. SERVUS ASTAPHIUM ANCILLA. See the scenehead 
of II, vii (§22), where in C the name of Astaphium has replaced the 
name Stratophanes. 

"In the Italic recension (D'F) the nota RUSTICUS designates 
Strabax in the scenehead of V, i (before vs. 893). But rusticus cer- 
tainly belonged to the servus, Stratilax (cf. the text of vs. 263); not 
to the adulescens, Strahax. In vs. 246 Strabax was called agrestis 
and A adds rusticus, by taking up a gloss from the margin. It was 
from some such gloss that the epithet Rusticus was taken up by the 
Italic recension in V, i as a nomen personae for Strabax. 



170 University of Texas Bulletin 

and Rudens, 21 in the Mmtellaria; and as the text of our so. 
i filled 22 lines"^ the transposition of the scene-head practically 
covers a precise page. This means that the copjdst's or rubri- 
cator's eye, after a period of diversion, had first fallen on the 
wrong leaf of his original, but at the corresponding horizontal 
level of the opposite leaf. ' 

The nota Z ; confusion of nomina personarum 

22. In Act II, sc. ii, the only other scene in which The Tru- 
culent has a place, F (representing the Italic recension) has 
the nomina Stratilax servus Ascaphium ancilla. If we go for- 
ward, however, to II sc. i (vs. 210), a distance (run-over lines 
not reckoned) of 45 lines (2X22-J-1), we find in B, instead of 
the name of Astaphium, a most unique scenehead, viz., 

n 

ZASTRAPHIVC. VL 
Here Z is the Greek letter used as a nota personam (cf. Dziatzko 
in Fleck. JBB. 127, 61) ; while the R, so far as 1 can learn, has 

n 
not been in the least explained. Nor has VL been entirely 
explained. There lies over the V a sprawling minuscule n (or 
something like that), or an inverted omega, and the L is most 
imperfect in its horizontal bar. The C is of course for Canti-. 
cum,. Later on, in the scenehead of II, vii (before vs. 551), 
we discover the secret of the R. There the soldier Stratophanes, 
whose name is certified by the text,^'' is designated in B as 



^^The incomplete line quid sum uemiit (651) was due to the mis- 
reading of perrogo in 650 as /in /terrogo (see on P/T § 12 fn.).^ Vss. 
650-651 are in the "chopped hay" style: 

650 quaerit patrem. dico esse in urbe. perrogo (with entreaties I 
ply him) ; 

651 homo cruminam sibi de collo detrahit. 

^^Vs. 500, Stratophones (Strata phones) ; 503, Stratvo panes (statio- 

r] 
panes); 513, Strata patnem; 929, Staitophanes; note in the scenehead 
of II, vi STATOPHANES corrected to STRATOPHANES (D=) ; and 
In the scenehead of II, vii STATOPIMONES (B), with St corrected 
out of SA, while T(0) and P(I) are dittographic (§12 fn.), and 
M=PH, cf. PN for PH in ASTAPNIUM (B, II, iii). 



I 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 171 

AST ARC, but in C as ASTAPHIUM^** .C. (STAPHIUM, D^). 
Now if we count down our list of Dramatis Personae — of no Ms. 
authority, but arranged correctly in the order of appearance — 
the 6th character (reckoning the prologus as the first) is the 
soldier, Stratophanes. The riddlesome Z is the 6th character 
in the Greek alphabet and designated, as usual, the 6th char- 
acter in the play; cf. Lindsay, Captivi, p. 91, on the original 
Greek notae of the Trinummus, where the character of Lysiteles, 
there designated by Z, appears in our list of Dramatis Personae 
in the 5th place. But we know that in the Trimimmus the old 
man Philto was designated out of order by A (for A), an ar- 
rangement whereby Lysiteles becomes the 6th character. Be 
it added for the stake of completeness that the interfusion of 
the nomha Astaphium and Stratophanes in the nota ZASTRA- 

n _ n 

PHIVC. VL is proved by VL,^' i. e. NVL, a miswriting for 
MIL(ES). 

The nomen Stratilax in P 

23. The fossil Z in the scenehead of II, i, is of the utmost 
significance, for it proves that in a now lost precursor of B 



"It is not certain that Astaphium appears in this scene at all. Leo 
assigns a few words to her, and Lindsay follows him, but with the 
curious omission of her name from the scenehead. Goetz and Schoell 
give her no place in the scene, but assign her supposed words to her 
mistress, Phronesium. 

"'Dziatzko, l.s.c, explains VL as a substractive numeral^XLV, and 
the number of verses in the Canticum is, as we have seen, 45. Startling 
as this coincidence is, it seenas to be a mere accident, even when 
supported by the scenehead of Trinummus II, ii where, after the last 
word of the Canticum of II, 1 (58 verses in B) B adds LX, followed by 
the nomina filto lysiteles. Now it is at II, ii of the Trinummus that 
the P Mss. begin to indicate the notae personarum by the (Greek) 
letter A (for /\) to designate Philto and Z for Lysiteles. So I conclude 
that the LX preceding the proper names in the scenehead is a mis- 
writing of the notae L and Z (both=Lysiteles). For X miswritten 
#or Z cf. Tmc. 954, where the P Mss. have xonas for zonam. ■ Or 
LX=LV {nota for Lysiteles). — I find subsequently that Lindsay has 
given much the same explanation of LX. Nor does he accept Dziatzko's 

« 
explanation of VL. Anc. Edit. (p. 83). 



172 University of Texas Bulletin 

certain information about the Dramatis Personae of the Tru- 
culentus was contained, just as in the Trinummus there is a 
record of the original Greek alphabetic notae. Whatever was 
the source of the Z was also the source of the nonien personae 
Stratilax (Strati lax in D^ accounts for B's Stratilex). This 
information will at least have consisted partly in abbrevia- 
tions, cf. B's ASTARC— C=Canticum— for STRAT., con- 
founded with ASTAP. in II, vii. It is clear that the notae for 
Strabax Stratulax StratopJianes and even Astaphium were all 
subject to concurrence and confusion, which accounts, among 
other things, for the elevation of the epithet Truculentus to a 
role-name; cf. Busticns (D^ and F) for Strahax in Act V, 
Strabax' second and last appearance. But Stratulax was also 
Eusticus (cf. § 22 and vs. 262), which further accounts for the 
intrusion of the nomen Stratilax Eusticus at Strabax' first ap- 
pearance (III, i). For the confusion of the notae for Strato- 
pltanes and Astaphium some marked and specific unclearness 
in the manuscript source for the Greek notae must be assumed. 

Tlie nota St. for Stratulax 

24. It is worth noting, perhaps, that in III, ii, the scene of 
Stratulax' second and last appearance, the readings uoluptasi 
(vs. 687) and dicist (690) may stand for uolupta/s/ St. and 
dici/s/ St.; cf. also on tru/n/cu/s/ lentus St., § 17. Leo found 
in these extra t's the nota for Tr., and included in his evidence 
hahen[t] (vs. 6S0), where the error is of quite another sort; cf. 
dan\t] in vs. 373; As. 671 (correctly explained by Havet, 1. e. 
§ 897) ; es[t] in vs. 586. 

The name Stratulax in Cicero 

25. But it now remains to discuss (1) the connection of 
Cicero's Antony epithet of Stratillax (so the Ms., but il is mis- 
written for u, see § 16, and cf. Lindsay, TE. p. 87; Poen. 314, 
PLELLI in A for pleni) ; and (2) the quips suggested by the 
telltale name to the Greek author of the Stratulax scenes. We 
have seen already (§ 7) how few lines fall to Stratulax, but 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 173 

yet his character so dominates the play that, in a paradoxical 
sense, his two scenes look almost like a mime — a Herondean 
mime — given length by contamination with the old stock busi- 
ness of the nea — ^^a, bragging soldier, two young men sowing 
their wild oats, a meretrix, a wronged young lady, mother of 
a child by. her former fiance, to whom she is to be reunited be- 
fore the curtain falls. In the first scene, The Truculent, avail- 
ing himself of the doorbar {sera) or doorpeg (pessulus) to 
gesticulate a phallus, repulses and rebuffs, with comic inver- 
sion of the expected action, the amorous advances of Astaphium, 
once a m-eretrix, now sunk to an ancilla meretricis — a sort of 
duenna, i)erhaps, like Scapha in the Mostellaria. Later on, in 
the counterscene, his mood all changed to compliance and invi- 
tation, he reiterates the phallic play, actually employing a 
paxillum (i. e. a pessulus). Its grossness apart, this scene is 
supremely clever, and there is a positive stroke of genius at 
the end where The Truculent, in the height of his ogling, on 
learning that his young master has entered the lair of the mere- 
trix, flares up in a sharp outcry with the old truculence, cast- 
ing aside for the nonce his vaunted urbanity and new culture. 
No playwright, whether Shakespeare or another, has ever sur- 
passed in portraiture effect the result here so simply and eco- 
nomically achieved. 

Proverbial character of the Truculent 

26. A character like The Truculent 's w^as foreordained to 
become proverbial. See how the composer of the acrostic argu- 
ment seized on his traits in the words, 

ui magna seruos est ac trucibus moribus, 
lupae ni rapiant domini parsim,oniam : 
et is tamen mollitur. 

His seachange also met the notice of Donatus (ad Terenti Ad. 
V, ix, 29) : bene in postremo dignitas personae huius seruata 
est, ut non perpetuo commutata uideretur, ut Truculenti apud 
Plautum. As a characterization of another, the name of The 
Truculent would be apt (1) for a change in general from trucu- 
lence to mildness; (2) for a like change in an amorous relation; 



174 University of Texas Bulletin 

(3) for an improvement in urbanity; (4) or merely to describe 
great violence of manner. 

Stratulax and the Second Philippic 

27. In a letter belonging to November-December B. C. 44, 
a time shortly after the incubation of the Second Philippic, 
which had been sent to Atticus only some three to five weeks 
before, Cicero at the end of his letter,^*' hastening to the signa- 
ture (as we would say), writes this cryptic sentence: 

Lcptae litterarum exemplum tibi misi ex quo mihi videtur 
Stratillax (i. e. Stratulax, see § 25) ille delectus de gradu. 
Now in deiectus de gradu we have an excellent interpretative 
clue. This is to be interpreted, after the good rule of explain- 
ing Cicero by Cicero, in the light of de of. 1, 80, 

fortis vero animi et constantis est non perturbari in rebus 
asperis nee tumultuantem de gradu deici ut dicitur.^''' 
Here, as in our homely figure of the barnyard, I take de gradu 
deici to mean "to be knocked off his perch," used of a quarrel- 
some cock, deiectus de gradu scalae gallinariae (cf. also Varro, 
r. r. 3, 3, 4, for the climbing ladder in an aviary). The stereo- 
typed explanation from the fencing of gladiators is a pure 
guess, certified by nothing; nor is de gradu, as in Thes. LL. V. 
398, 16, to be closely grouped with de laco or de statu, a mis- 
take forbidden by Cicero's ut dicitur (cf. also Otto, Sprich- 
woerter, s. v. deicio). Again, it is a mere guess to interpret 
Stratulax ille by "imperatorculus, " an interpretation which 
Stdphanus {s. v. Stratullax) properly challenged. Be it noted 



"The remainder of the letter is a genuine postscript, subsequently 
added, before despatch of the missive, in response to a communication 
receired meantime from Atticus. 

"That is, not to be fluctuating and choleric. In this sense Tacitus, 
dial. 26, writes of Cassius Severus, . . . quamquam plus bills habeat 
quam sanguinis . . omissa modestia ac pudore verborum, ipsis etiam 
quibus utitur armis incompositis et studio feriendi plerumque deiectus, 
non pugnat sed rixatur. Clearly in Cicero deiectus de gradu might 
refer to the "floundering" of an irate, but inexpert, speaker like 
Antonius. 



I 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 175 

in passing that, while I was correcting a proof of this essay, 
a negro servant boy answering to the name of " General' '—and 
the sobriquet is not rare — brought a pacl^age to my door. 

Apt7iess of the name Stratulax to Antony 

28. The Second Philippic reveals several points which would 
justify the application of the name of Stratulax, the Truculent, 
to Mark Antony: (1) to characterize the mere violence of 
Antony's reply, on Sept. 19, to the First Philippic; (2) to 
sneer at Antony's amorous reconciliation with Fulvia as re- 
counted at length and with gusto in Phi\. II, 77 sq. ; (3) to 
characterize Antony's relatively mild demeanor to Cicero in 
the senate, after the fury of his edict; (4) to sneer at the new 
"urbanity" of Antony's Ciceroniad and the rhetorical coach- 
ing he had taken for it; (5) lastly, the Cicero who had written 
of Antony 

dat nataliciam in hortis. cui ? neminem nominabo : putate turn 
Phormioni alicui, turn Gnathoni, turn etiam Ballioni 
might well, in a private letter, have branded Antony Avith the 
name of the most violent — with the possible exception of Ballio 
— of all the characters on the Roman comic stage. Leo's warn- 
ing (see his note on vs. 256) not to look to Cicero's Stvatilax 
for the elucidation of the character of The Truculent (or con- 
versely) means a mere refusal to search for evidence: "nomen 
proprium non indiderat poeta." Alack and alas! 

Derivation of the name Stratulax; interpretative dues 

29. Against the admission of the name Stratulax as the 
name of the servus rusticus (§21 fn.) et truculentus the argu- 
ment has been seriously advanced that Stratulax is not a nomen 
servile Oraecum! Certainly not, and neither is the name Pseu^ 
dulus (haplologically shortened from Pseu/do/-dolos, quasi 
"Guile-tricker") a typical nomen servile ^ but a nomen signifi- 
caria a poeta quodam Graeco sive assumptiim sive conflaiumi 
Just so Stratidax^^ ( : * stratulos : : Strabax : strabos "squint- 

»«The long o may be due to Latin flexion types, cf. Gulax "Throaty" 
(Lat. giUa). The derisive name Strahax is no typical nomen adulescen- 
tis, either. 



176 University of Texas Bulletin 

eyed" : : Uthax "stony": lithos "stone") will be a derisive 
name {nomen irrisivum), compounded (with haplology) from 
Strato—\-tulax (or -tola-x), cf. the gloss tolux, aidoion; or from 
strato-\-lax. The comic poet, like another Shakespeare, may 
be expected to have played at will with his telltale name, mak- 
ing quips (1) now on strato (i. e. "prostratus" or "stramen- 
tum, " cf. vs. 278, i)i strmiientis pernoctare) ; (2) now on lax 
(cf. vs. 268, pedihus proteram., translating, I take it, Ifikpateso f^ 
(3) now on -tulax or -tolax. As Vahlen rightly saw, the Greek 
author of the Truculentus translated the name Phronesium for 
the benefit of his hearers (in vs. 78^^), while for the Roman audi- 
ence, as Vahlen duly insisted,*" the interpretation of the name 
was indispensable. 

Further interpretative clues from the telltale name 

30. Numerous further suggef^tions for quips were likely 
to arise from the composition of strato- with -tulax. Thus if 
-tulax belongs with tiile "culcita" the compound would indi- 
cate (1) very much what the compound Eunuchus ("chamber- 
lain") indicates, viz., "qui sternit culcitas." The taunt of 
being a eunuch (cf. also the use made of a eunuch's disguise in 



^"No one who has ever read his Shakespeare can be at a loss for 
instances how one word suggests another and quip begets quip. But 
it is not only in the jocular sphere that one word so suggests another 
that words may be said to do our thinking for us. It is in this sense 
that Brunetiere criticized Victor Hugo: In the poet Hugo the 
quality of verbal cleverness . . often . . made up for the insufficiency 
of ideas'. For words express, ideas, although some of those who jingle 
them are not always fully aware of it; and one thinks just by "speak- 
ing", when one speaks like Hugo, with that sense of the depth of 
vocables which he possessed and with that marvellous gift of drawing 
from them unknown resonances. 

"Schoell's strictures on Vahlen {ed. major, p. xlvi) belong to the 
ancient days when the psychology of' classical playwrights and their 
audiences was submitted to the rigid whimsies of Teutonic study-logic. 
To say nothing of the Roman audience, the original Greek audience 
would surely not have taken amiss the interpretation of Phrvnesion in 
terms of sophia (cf. on tautology in literature Friedrich ad Catull. 
40, 5), quasi "Miss Prudence hath ta'en my wits away." 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 177 

Terence's play of that name) Avonld apply to Stratulax' repulse, 
in his first scene, of Astaphium's amorous advances. If -tulax 
belongs with tulos "paxillum" (cf. § 9) the compound amounts 
(2) to truncus lentus*^ (cf. § 17), in reverse order. (3) If, as 
a derisive epithet, the name Stratulax were ancient enough, 
-lax might have its original sense of "tundens, tudicula" (cf. 
Meister, Ilerond., p. 749), cognate with Lat. lacerat and lacessit 
(="provocat, irritat"). (4) As a passive noun, the same -lax 
might mean "provocatio, irritatio," and the whole compound 
be equivalent to "qui prostrata est irritatione" (cf. OLat. lax 
"fraus" in Festus, noting for the sense the metaphor whereby 
ferit percutit, etc., yield "fraudat"; see Lorenz's note in the 
preface to his Pseudulus, p 48 sq.) (5) Again, if the name were 
old enough, -lax might mean "voluntas" or "ira" (lax : lema 
: : ptdx : petEds) . (6) Or it may be in gradation with Ze/co fd 
morion td aiidrelon (cf. lEkdei as used in Aristophanes, Thesm. 
493), and the name Stratu-lax mean "prostrata mentula, " de- 
scribing the Icntitude of Stratulax in the first scene. 

31. Thus it appears that the poet's choice or invention of 
the name Stmtulax hangs closely with the chief actioD of The 
Truculent, viz. the (inverted) phallic play with the sera or 
pcssulus in II, ii (§ 3) ; and with the paxillum in III, ii (§ 9). 
For the words reprime serrmii (§12) we may even hope to re- 
store the original Greek, viz. anisclieh/ stidon (quasi tJiilrsos, 
cf. Euripides, frg. 202; i. e. a phallus; note the Latin glosses 
caulus thyrsus tursus), the stfdos here being the mdcJdos or 
bdlanos {paxillum, pessulus, § 2). In the Greek original stulos 
was retorted, after aniscJie/s/^" by some form of tidos=mdn- 
dalos, pdssalos, mentula, though the actual words of the retort 
may be restored as toud' (sc. tidou) antSchou (§ 13). Thanks to 
the Latin locution with serram ducere (§ 12), Plautus was able, 
in Astaphium's further retort, still moreto deploy the jest from 
serra (rustic for sera) as echoed with an intimation of sera 
(mentula). 



"As an epithet, the uncompounded truncus lentus may be compared 
with the Pompeius epithet of Sopio, cf. § 2 fn. 



178 University of Texas Bulletin 

Summary (see also ^18) 

32. I believe myself to have established in the foregoing 
paper the following points for the interpretation of the Trucu- 
lentus of Plautus : 

(1) II, ii is a scene of (inverted) phallic play, exhibiting 
Stratulax' amorous lentitude, coupled with great vio- 
lence. 

(2) III, ii is a scene of direct phallic play, exhibiting 
Stratulax' amorous revivification and restored good 
temper. 

(3) The telltale name Stratulax (§§ 29 sq.) either="qui 
prostrata est mentula, " characterizing the action of II, 
ii ; or " qui prostrata est irritatione, ' ' characterizing the 
action of III, ii (§§ 7 sq; 11 sq.). 

(4) The name Stratulax, become proverbial, was applied 
by Cicero to Mark Antony (§ 28). 



*-If to the correct form anisclie the Greek original added s it was 
because of doublets like pdrasehe/pardsches (fdnascJie/andscJies) ; and 
for the purpose of establishing an equivoque between tillos and stulos. 
On the distribution of Greek puns between word-final and word-initial 
see e. g. K. Ohlert, Ratsel und Ratselspiele der alien Griechen, p. 8. 
Perhaps the rustic chose to hear Astaphium's anische stUlon as anisches 
tulon. 



WILLIAM HARVEY 

BY AUTE RICPIARDS 

William Harvey, sou of a Kentish yoeman, was born at Folke- 
stone, Kent, April 1, 1578, when Shakespeare was a lad of four- 
teen years. The house in which he was born is now the prop- 
erty of Cambridge University, to which Harvey bequeathed it. 
His early school days, like those of Shakespeare'? great con- 
temporary Christopher Marlowe, were spent in the King's School, 
Canterbury. Like ]\Iarlowe, Harvey went from this school to 
Cambridge University, matriculating at Cains College, where 
he took his B. A. degree in 1597. He had determined to study 
medicine by this time, and for this purpose journeyed to the 
continent. He traveled through France, Germany and Italy, and 
became a student at the University of Padua, the most famous 
school of medicine at that time. "Fair Padua, nursery of arts" 
will be remembered as the background for most of the action 
in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. To that University 
Lueentio had come for "a course of learning and ingenious 
studies." During his period as a medical student Harvey was 
very popular and was chosen student "concillor" for England, 
a fact which bears testimony to his prominence among his fel- 
low students, for these student concillors in their deliberations 
very largely managed the University by their votes upon Uni- 
versity measures and instructors. 

At Padua, Harvej^ came in contact with many famous people 
both in his own field and in others; for instance, Gallileo was at 
Padua at this time. The most important influence, however, came 
from his studies under the great Fabricius of Aquapendente, 
who developed for him a great friendship. The importance of 
this influence upon Harvey's later work is easily seen when it is 
remembered that his teacher, one of Europe's greatest anatomists 
up to this time, was already past sixty years of age and was at 
that time perfecting his Imowledge of the valves in the veins. 
He took Harvey into his confidence and thoroughly instructed 
him in all of the knowledge of the circulatory system then extant. 
Harvey took his M. D. degree from Padua on the 25th of April, 
1602. He then returned to England and was graduated in 

[179] 



180 University of Texas Bulletin 

medicine at Cambridge in the same year. It is worthy of favor- 
able comment that even at this early date a great physician 
should have deemed it necessary to acquire a general education 
at Cambridge before spending four years in pursuing his special 
subject abroad. 

Harvey, soon after taking his M. D. from Cambridge, set 
up a practice in London. There he may have seen acted for the 
first time any one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies — Hamlet, 
Macbeth, Othello, or King Lear; there is no basis, however, for 
any inference that he may have had a personal acquaintance 
with Shakespeare. He was married in 1604 to Elizabeth, the 
daughter of Dr. Lancelot Browne, who had formerly been phys- 
ician to Queen Elizabeth. He was elected a Fellow in the Royal 
College of Physicians in 1607, and in 1609 became physician to 
St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 

Early in his practice, 1604, Harvey had begun to give public 
lectures on anatomy ; and in pursuance of this task he had stead- 
ily continued his own investigations, making dissections when 
opportunity offered and studying the anatomy of animals as 
well. In recognition of his gradually increasing prominence 
and of his scientific attainments, he was elected Lumleian Lec- 
turer at the College of Physicians on August 4, 1615, and in 
the following year on the 16, 17, and 18 of April he delivered the 
lectures in which he first announced his conclusions in regard 
to the circulation of the blood. These three lectures were con- 
cerned with the subject of anatomy as a whole, and it is the 
second which is of particular importance to the physiology of 
the circulation. This lecture deals Avith the chest and its con- 
tents, and nine pages of the notes refer in particular to the heart. 
' ' lie first describes the structure of the heart and . the great . 
blood vessels, explains the contraction of the several cavities of 
the heart, the form and use of its valves and of the valves in 
the veins, and he concludes by clearly stating that he has thus 
demonstrated that the perpetual motion of the blood in a circle- 
is produced by the beat of the heart." {Diet. Nat. Biog.) Har- 
vey continued his studies in this direction for a long period, wait- 
ing fourteen years to publish his results, until 1628 when his 
book "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood Vessels in Animals" 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 181 

(Exercitatio Anatomico de Moto Cordis et Sanguinis in Anim-ali- 
hiis) appeared. Thus he exhibited his great scientific patience 
and deliberation. 

His theories on the circulation did not go unchallenged, and he 
had to defend them against a lively opposition. He, however, 
finally won his way of thinking with his medical associates; and 
at the time of his death his views were practically accepted by 
all the most prominent physicians. He demonstrated the circu- 
lation of the blood; but did not actually see it in the capillaries, 
for that waited until the perfection of lenses in 1661, which 
permitted Malpighi to see the movement of the blood through 
the capillaries of the frog. 

Harvey's later life was little less occupied. He was court 
physician to James I and Charles I, and, in this capacity, played 
his part in the tragic historic drama then being enacted in Eng- 
land. During all this period, however, he continually bent his 
efi'orts to solving the mysteries of the workings of the animal 
body. In 1646 he retired to private life and brought out his 
second great book De Generatione Anhnalimn in 1651, a work 
which in itself would have given him a place among the great- 
est names in the history of biology. On June 3, 1657 he ended 
an eventful and a forceful life, one rich in accomplishments. It 
is to its effects, however, rather than to its events that his great 
pre-eminence is due. 

Personally Harvey was a man of great force, yet he pos- 
sessed a contemplative mind. Not even in youth did his bril- 
liant announcement show any undue haste or abruptness. He 
was slow and deliberate, painstaking and careful. In scientific 
matters he was charitable, magnanimous, and even in his replies 
to his opponents well-mannered and considerate. But of his re- 
lations in private life the same cannot be said, for he is described 
as choleric and hasty; yet he made many friends whom he re- 
tained throughout life, and he was at all times held in the highest 
respect. He was by nature a man largely and thoughtfully 
generous, and his writings show him to have been of a reverently 
religious mind. It is to be inferred that he was a Protestant, 
though there is no complete verification of this in his writings. 



182 University of Texas Bulletin 

He was at all times a Royalist, and deeply regretted the change 
in government with the coming of the Commonwealth. 

In the history of biology and medicine up to Harvey's time 
three broadly marked stages may be observed. First, there are 
the scattered and poorly systematized observations of the An- 
cients, lasting to about 200 A. D. Next followed the long period 
of the Dark Ages, a time of implicit reliance upon authorites. 
And then came a period of renewed observation, and with it the 
decline of authority initiated by the famous Paduan anatomist, 
Vesalius ( 1543 ) . Vesalius was the greatest biologist of the Ren- 
aissance up to Harvey's time, and to him was due the re-estab- 
lishment of scientific method. He was a pioneer in real anat- 
omical research, and from his investigations dates the period 
of anatomical ascendency. "With Harvey came the period of 
physiology. It was he who coupled experimentation with anat- 
omical studies, and he was the first who made any careful studies 
upon living animals. 

The circulation of the blood had to a certain extent been fore- 
shadowed by investigators of the sixteenth century, but Harvey 
was the first Who fully grasped the idea, and to him only is due 
the credit for its proof. Servetius, in 1553, had clearly stated 
the idea of the pulmonary circulation from the heart to the 
lungs in a book so revolutionary that for it John Calvin accom- 
plished his burning at the stake. This idea of the pulmonary 
circulation was also expressed by Columbus, professor of anatomy 
at Rome, in 1559, but it is thought that he merely stole Serve- 
tius' work, for he gives no record of experiments and repeats 
almost exactly the words of Servetius. His work was widely 
known, yet he had no clear idea of the greater circulation, for he 
says that the heart is not muscular, and he speaks of a "to 
and fro" movement of the blood in the veins. The last step 
prior to Harvey was taken by his teacher, Fabricius, to whose 
work on the valves of the veins reference has already been made. 

Harvey's demonstration was the result of reasoning based on 
two kinds of experimentation : ligatures about the blood vessels, 
and the exposure of the heart and analysis of its movements. 
The true conception first came to him from a consideration of the 
action of the cavities of the heart and their valves and of the 



Memorial Volume to SJiaJcespeare and Harvey 183 

valves of the veins. "The central point of Harvey's reasoning 
is that the quantity of blood which reaches the left cavity of the 
heart in a given space of time makes necessary its return to the 
heart, since in a half hour (or less) the heart by successive pul- 
sations throws into the great artery more than the total quan- 
tity of blood in the body." (Locy.) The following additional 
propositions also had a place in his reasoning : the heart is an . 
organ of propulsion of the blood; the auricles contract first, 
forcing the blood into the ventricles ; the ventricles then contract, 
forcing the blood into the arteries ; the blood returns to the heart 
by way of the veins ; the veins empty the blood into the auricles. 
From these facts Harvey was forced to the conclusion that the 
blood passes from the arteries to the veins. 

Until Harvey's time it was generally assumed that the blood 
ebbed and flowed in the veins, while the arteries contained va- 
rious kinds of "spirits," the natural, vital, and animal spirits. 
To ths doctrine Harvey's demonstration gave the death blow. 

"The new theory of the circulation made for the first time 
possible a true conception of the nutrition of the body, it cleared 
the way for the chemical appreciation of the uses of the blood, 
it afforded a basis which had not existed before for an under- 
standing of how the life of any part, its continued existence and 
its power to do what it has to do in the body is carried on by the 
help of the blood. And in this perhaps more than its being a 
true explanation of the special problem of the heart and the 
blood vessels lies its vast importance." (Foster.) 

"The true idea of respiration, of secretion by glands, the 
chemical changes in the tissues, in fact of all the general activi- 
ties of the body hinge upon this conception. It was these con- 
sequences of his demonstration rather than the fact that the 
blood moves in a circuit which made it so important. This dis- 
covery created modern physiology." (Locy.) 

Finally, Harvey's life as expressed in his scientific work was 
a genuine example of what we now term the scientific method. 
Possessed of a mind always curious to know more of the truth 
about the activities of the animal body, he ever gave himself 



. 184 University of Texas Bulletin 

to the minutest and most painstaking search, and was satisfied 
only when his observation and experiments forced him unques- 
tionablj^ to the truth of his conclusions. In his quest for truth 
he had the spirit of a modern investigator, of a man many years 
ahead of his times; and the fact that time has not dimmed the 
brilliance of his demonstration is positive proof of his own great 
intellectual superiority. 



"KNOW THYSELF"' INTERPRETED BY SOCRATES, 
SHAKESPEARE, Wm. HARVEY, AND MODERN MEN 

BY WM. E. RITTER 

Every wise modern heeds the admonition. Know Thou Thyself, 
no less religiously than did that one of the Seven Sages who 
uttered it first. What do the words mean to-day 1 We no longer 
post them over the temple door oi the Delphic oracle. But if 
we were to inscribe them on any of our temples, which should 
they be — those of Religion, Art, Education, or Science? Let my 
contribution to this festival week be a plea for renewed devotion 
to this injunction, and for the adoption of it in all our temples. 

Historically the mandate recalls unending discussions on ab- 
stract philosophy in a dusty, musty past, and causes something 
of a shudder; so the proposal to devote this hour to it may 
seem like proposing to make the hour dull and heavy. But we 
are living in a cruelly heavy time. No matter how determinedly 
we may resolve to forget for the moment the gigantic events 
in the midst of which we are, the deeper currents of our con- 
scious lives can not escape them. Calamity is the great tester 
of philosophy. A period like this reveals to men the sort of 
theories and ideals of life they have been nurturing as nothing 
else can. 

The last few generations of Westerners have been boastfully 
confident that they have largely outgrown philosophy and have 
emerged finally into the clear light of practicality. But what 
disillusionment we are undergoing! Who does not see now, as 
probably he never saw before, the necessity of probing the roots 
of every thing pertaining to human relations? And does not 
about the first move in this direction discover that our supposed 
practical age has in reality been permeated with the most di- 
verse and far-reaching though little criticized doctrines? A 
few students have been all along awake to the import of such 
doctrines as those of materialistic determinism in human history, 
of "economic society," and of ^Malthusianism; but not till lately 
have any considerable number of persons supposed that th(;se 
doctrines were of much practical consequence. How many in 

[185] 



186 University of Texas Bulletin 

our country at least, had even guessed before these last months 
what a philosophy of militarism and a theory of the State are 
capable of doing? 

To know one's self implies a theory of self. The bloody dis- 
order now filling the world is, I am persuaded, largely a conse- 
quence of inadequate and erroneous theories of self and of so- 
ciety that have prevailed through the centuries and, though im- 
proved, still prevail. It has seemed to me that the occasion 
will justify us in thinking on this great matter even though 
our thoughts can be in baldest outline only. 

My fundamental thesis is twofold: there are many more vital 
constituents in human nature than dominating theories of man 
have taken account of ; and these constituents interact upon 
one another far more widely and fundamentally than theory 
has recognized. 

To each of the great primal divisions of man's nature taken 
separately, to spiritual man and to physical man, great atten- 
tion has been given. Particularly in previous centuries theology 
and philosophy wrought out doctrines of man's spiritual nature 
with unbounded zea] and industry and skill. And in modern 
times biology, with its numerous subdivisions, has builded in the 
realm of his physical nature with no less zeal and industry and 
skill. But never have the theories in the two realms been brought 
together into anything like a consistent, harmonious whole. In- 
deed it has too often been a cardinal doctrine of each side that 
no such getting together is possible; that its own triumph de- 
mands the utter subjugation of the other side. The misery that 
human-kind has brought upon itself through the false theory that 
success is attainable only by the complete overthrow of an ad- 
versary ! 

But it is undoubtedly true that in two great realms of so- 
ciology and medicine, the enormous activitj^ of recent decades 
is resulting, however vaguely the fact may be recognized, in the 
breaking down of the impermeable bulkhead that has so long 
separated theories of man's spiritual being from theories of his 
physical being. 

That manufacture, trade, finance, and industrial and political 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 187 

organization, sanitation, and criminology are intrinsically phys- 
ical no one can refute ; yet the occasional excursions I have made 
into these fields convince me of a growing recognition among 
leaders that no matter how severely material any particular 
problem may be, rational, moral, esthetic, and religious elements 
are always present and demand consideration. I am quite sure 
all economic theory to-day is seeing the inevitability and power 
of ethical factors far more than formerly. 

In medicine, too, there is growing recognition that attention 
to physical matters alone can not reach the highest success in 
the actual task of restoring sick men and women to health, and 
keeping them healthy. No successful physician ever, I believe, 
M^holly ignores the psychical element in his patient, however 
scantily his formal training may have fitted him for this side 
of his work. The no distant future, is, I think, bound to see the 
now rudimentary psj^cho-therapy work great changes in medical 
theory and practice. 

The "get together" slogan of modern business is needed in 
modern science and philosophy. As a man of science I am filled 
with consternation as I come to really think about the part 
science has been made to play in the present world holocaust. 
Superposed on the physical tragedy of the Lusitania I see an- 
other tragedy no less dreadful — a tragedy of the human soul. 
The civilization of the modern AVest is the climax of all the 
civilization of the world, and its most distinctive attribute is 
physical science. So men of science have affirmed and hardly 
any one has questioned the affirmation. In no way, all agree, 
is the greatness of science more manifest than in its application 
to satisfying the practical needs and desires of man. And few 
achievements of applied science have been more applauded than 
the trans-oceanic liner. 

Now behold the marvel that has come to pass! Science pro- 
duces and successfully operates these noble ships and at the 
self-same time and in much the same way, not only produces an 
instrument for instantly destroying them, but actually does de- 
stroy them heedless that hundreds of innocent human beings are 
involved in the ruin ! Has the world eve-r seen or conceived 
anything more astounding at the hands of man! Is it really 

13— s 



188 University of Texas Bulletin 

true that the motive power behind civilization can do nothing 
greater than find some means of destroying anything it 
can create ? . Is growth in civilization purely quantitative — 
purely a matter of giving the head-hunter's business greater 
scope and precision and power? Is the making of hell more 
hellish the supreme achievement of science? I do not believe 
so, despite the strong evidence pointing that way. But scien- 
tific men ought to recognize that the share of blame and shame 
which falls to science is not small. 

It would be unjust and foolish to contend under prevailing 
conceptions of right and wrong that moral culpability rests 
upon the chemists, the physicists, the engineers, and others who 
have participated in making the war machine the dreadful thing 
it is. But when men shall come to know themselves and other 
men and nature as these really are, moral law, if not civil laAv, 
will,^ believe, interdict science from lending itself to the dire 
business in such unrestrained way as it has hitherto. 

To see something of the character of that knowledge of man 
and nature which would tend to such an end, is the task be- 
fore us. 

That wonderful period, the later sixteenth century and the 
earlier seventeenth, in which the two great Englishmen lived 
whose works are the occasion of this week 's meetings, contributed 
more, I believe, to such knowledge than any other period of 
equal length in the history of the world. Run over the list of 
familiar names belonging here. Galileo, Kepler, Tyeho Brahe, 
Torrecelli, Giordano Bruno and Rene Descartes might have 
seen Shakespeare act had it been customary then for companies 
to which he belonged to tour continental Europe; and Francis 
Bacon and Wm Harvey may have actually seen him at the 
English court. Going only a trifle outside of Shakespeare's 
lifetime, the very year that baby Willie's little lungs filled with 
air for the first time, Andreas Vesalius died a hungry outcast 
because of his offense in proving that if man would really know 
himself, one source of his knowledge must be the dissection of 
the dead human body. And "these bones" of the great author 
of his own epitaph were not clean of organic matter before the 
mothers of Isaac Newton, John Boyle, John Mayow, Marcello 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 189 

Malpighi, John Ray and Antony von LeeuAvenhoeck had given 
birth to the baby sons destined to develop into these notable 
men. 

Entering now a little further into the historical side of our 
subject, I ask you to recall the conditions under which Socrates 
took the exhortation, Know Thyself, as the text of his life-long 
sermonizing to his fellow Athenians. For a century before 
Socrates, the atmosphere of the little Greek community was 
charged with speculation about the mode of origin of the world. 
We recall how a single, simple primal world-stuff as the basis 
of everything was a self-evident proposition to the Ionian school: 
while a thorough-going multiplicity or pluralism seemed equally 
certain to another school, the later elaborators of the doctrines 
of Being and Becoming, who contended for the reality of things 
as they transform into one another. We know too, the conclu- 
sive arguments by which it was proved that Water, Air, and 
Fire is, each in turn, the ''real thing" in the cosmic matter 
theory. Further, we know as much perhaps as we need to know 
about the atomism of Leucippus, the mind-stuff-ism of Anaxa- 
goras, the numberisra of Pythagoras, and so on. Some historians 
of philosophy have aptly called the first period of Greek phil- 
<")sophy a cosmological period. 

Then arose, according to M^ont in such cases, the strong, eager, 
independent, and courageous protestant against the vapid mata- 
physies of nature then prevalent. The new seeker after truth 
was Socrates. ' ' For heaven 's sake, ' ' we seem to hear this young 
"knocker" exclaim after he had drunk his fill at the approved 
fountains of wisdom, "since we must philosophize, let us see 
if we can't find a. way of doing it that will lead to something 
tangible and permanent; and above all, to something of conse- 
quence to human beings. ' ' About the chief ground of Socrates 's 
rebellion was that man seemed to him left out of the systems 
against which he fought, while the only subject, thought he, 
worthy of serious study by serious men, is man himself. "God 
has commanded me to examine men," and "In the city I can 
learn men, but the fields and trees teach me nothing, "he said. 

Despite Socrates 's failure to do all he started out to do and 
believed he was doing, we must, I think, recognize that he did 



190 University of Texas Bulletin 

two things that will eudure forever and be true for all realms of 
knowledge. He drove home the truth that since all knowledge 
is man 's knowledge — is wrought out by man for man — the human 
element can never be eliminated from it no matter how purely 
objective it may seem to be ; and that the process of knowledge- 
getting itself must be critically examined in order that knowledge 
may be trustworthy. What greater service has ever been ren- 
dered mankind, what service is more needed in this very day, 
than that of convicting us of that "shameful ignorance which 
consists in thinking we know when we do not know?" 

But while acknowledging Socrates 's great merit in recogniz- 
ing the necessity of critically examining the process of knowledge- 
getting, we must not be blind to the disastrous incompleteness 
of the results he reached by his own efforts. The theory of 
knowledge which he evolved was a theory of only one-half of 
knowledge. Know thyself meant to him know thyself subjec- 
tively only. It did not mean know thyself objectively. It meant 
know half of thyself, not thy whole self. 

Eecall the interpretation he put upon the Delphic oracle's 
pronouncement that he was the wisest of men. He was wise, 
he said, because he knew he knew nothing, whereas others re- 
puted to be wise did not know their own ignorance. But what 
sort of ignorance was it in which he gloried? Why, ignorance 
of everything except himself, and "himself" taken subjectively. 
Refuting the charge that "Socrates is an evil-doer, who meddles 
with inquiries into things beneath the earth, and in heaven," 
he insisted that it was false and unjust for Aristophanes to 
represent him as suspending himself in a basket and pretend- 
ing that he wa^ walking on air when the truth is, he said, he had 
nothing to do with these matters as all knew who had conversed 
with him. No one, he said, ever heard him talk about anything 
earthy. 

Now for the fatal practical weakness in the Socratic interpre- 
tation of man. Did its doctrine of self implicate nothing but 
a theory of concepts and cognition, while it would be of much 
interest to psychologists and logicians and epistemologists, it 
would not vitally concern the great rank and file of men. But 
.owing to the fact, which Socrates recognized, that a theory of 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 191 

knowledge does finally and inevitably implicate a theory of 
morality, and to the further fact that a theory of morality 
finally and inevitably implicates morality itself, it has turned 
out that this philosophy has been and still is of the utmost im- 
portance to the world affected by it; that is, to what we call 
the Western World. The kernel of the matter is that Socrates 's 
doctrine of self was a doctrine of myself and not of yourself. 
It gives an assumed reality and fundamentality to me that it 
does not give to you. It does not recognize that other selves 
are as essential to my existence as is myself. 

The ethical system launched by Socrates and continued down 
to this day is a system of subjective egoism. It never has recog- 
nized and is not capable of recognizing the real nature of human 
interdependence. It never has felt nor can it feel the full 
measure of man's obligation to man. That virtue which in the 
Socratic system is the concomitant of knowledge is not full and 
practical virtue. It is a virtue diluted with mock humility and 
aloofness from human affairs. 

One other consequence of the Socratic theory of life must be 
noticed, though it will have to be touched even more cursorily 
than those previously noticed. 

Socrates "had it in for" the poets quite as well as for the 
wise men, i. e., the philosophers of nature. ' Why was this ? That 
he should have had a grudge against the comic poets is not sur- 
prising, for he had felt the sting of their ridicule. But why did 
he pronounce the great tragedians and the others of his time as 
without wisdom, and so, according to his theory, without virtue ? 
Because they too were too much occupied with other things than 
concepts. Like the physicists, they treated the world outside 
of and beyond themselves with too much consideration. Even 
their gods were more external and objective than he could tol- 
erate. The point of consequence in this for us is that a great 
poet as Shakespeare, for example, deals with externality no less 
than does the physical scientist. The poet is an interpreter of 
nature — of sensuous nature — no less than is the naturalist. To 
him other selves are as real and significant and interesting as our 
own selves, just as they are to great naturalists. 

Look now in summary at what man's effort to know himself 



192 University of Texas Bulletin 

had accomplished by the time Socrates was compelled to drink 
the deadly cup. 

First, the urgency of the problem had been more definitely 
and keenly felt than ever before. In the second place, it had 
been formulated with a fullness and definiteness that had not 
hitherto been approached. Further, the twofoldness of man's 
nature, his spiritual group of attributes and his physical group 
had been so sharply differentiated from each other that they 
had seemed to belong to two distinct realms of existence. So 
different in kind were the two groups seen to be that it was 
conceived they must have originated in antipodal parts of the 
universe . and that their being together must be more or less 
fortuitous and temporary. The ultimate essence of man could 
not contain so much that is incongruous, contradictory, and even 
actively hostile, reasoned the leaders of thought of this early 
period. And so the two great currents of interpretation of 
man were definitely started that have flowed down through the 
centuries of western civilization, each sometimes quite oblivious 
of the other's existence, while at other times mingling more or 
less, too often in bitter jealousy and strife as to their respective 
rights and powders and excellencies. 

The discovery of the circulation of the blood was the first 
great demonstration by rigorous methods of observation, ex- 
perimentation, and reasoning, of the various anatomico-physi- 
ological systems that enter into the composition of each human 
being. Harvey did not discover the several elements of the cir- 
culatory mechanism: heart, arteries, veins, valves, and so on. 
These Avere known long before his time. "What he did was to 
prove how these are interrelated ; how they operate together and 
depend upon one another; how the work of the heart is sup- 
plemented by the muscularity of the arterial walls; how the 
valves of the veins aid the veins in returning the systemic blood 
to the heart. Hitherto Anatomy and Physiology had been 
largely sciences of the members of , the body. "With this dis- 
covery they w^ere started on their way as sciences of the systems 
of our members. 

Discovery after discovery closely, dependent upon that made 
by Harvey soon followed, revealing still further the nature and 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 193 

interdependence of the body parts. Only one group of these 
need detain us now. The demonstration of that interrelation- 
ship between the blood and nervous systems which constitutes 
the vaso-motor system, and which opened the way for our present 
insight into the so-called organic sensations and our physico- 
psychic conception of the emotions, must be counted as one of 
the greatest of the progeny of Harvey's germinal discovery. 
That the James-Lange theory of emotion may be regarded as 
a lineal descendant of Harvey's discovery — indeed was adum- 
brated by Harvey himself — is seen in his refutation of the old 
notion that the heart is the seat of the emotions. ' ' Every affection 
of the mind," he writes, "that is attended with pleasure and pain, 
with hope and fear, is simply the cause of an agitation which 
extends to the heart and there induces change from natural con- 
stitution, impairing nutrition, depressing the powers of life, 
and so engendering disease." Compare this with the following 
by Professor C. Lange, like Plarvey a physician. "It. is the 
vasomotor system that we have to thank for the whole emotional 
aspect of our mental life, for our joys and sorrows, our hours 
of happiness and misery. If the objects that affect our senses 
had not the power to throw this system into action, we should 
travel through life indifferent and dispassionate." 

The conception of emotion held by modern psychology, un- 
doubtedly differs in important respects from that suggested by 
Harvey. But it is clear that they have this in common: all 
our deepest sentiments and passions, good and bad, are insep- 
arably connected with and dependent upon our general body 
constitution, especially upon our vasomotor mechanism. 

It seems to be literally and not figuratively true that when 
we love or hate, are joyous or sad, feel exalted or depressed, 
kindly or hatefully disposed toward all about us, and fire intense 
about it, our whole being, body no less than soul, is funda- 
mentally iniplicated. Nor does Harvey fail to let us know how 
his objective discoveries fitted into his deeper conceptions of life 
and nature. Two aspects of his researches brought him face to 
face with these larger problems. One was his study of the 
motion of the heart; the other his reflections on the blood as 
the vital fluid of the body. The high water mark of his ability 



194 University of Texas Bulletin 

as a philosophic biologist is reached, I think, in his handling of 
these two matters. His main treatise, entitled, "An Anatomictl 
Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals," 
is devoted solely to an accurate and full description of the struc- 
ture and operation of the blood system. Questions of ultimate 
causes and reasons he hardly touches in this book and when 
he does, only to show the error of some prevalent teaching. 
"Whether or not," he says, "the heart, besides propelling the 
blood, giving it motion locally and distributing' it to the body, 
adds anything else to it, — heat, spirit, perfection, — must be in- 
quired into by and by and decided upon other grounds." Ohser- 
vuhle facts first, was his. watchword. Causal explanations and 
appraisements of value must come afterwards. 

Two things in his ability to combine observation and gener- 
alization are supremely important. First, he did not for an in- 
stant waver in accepting the validity and the worth of the sen- 
suous elements in knowledge. Socrates 's grilling dialectic would 
never have wheedled Harvey into admitting that there was no 
virtue in the knowledge he had acquired of the structure and 
movements of the heart, or that this knowledge had nothing to 
do with the sort of self-knowledge that saves souls. 

The other notable thing in Harvey's mode of interpreting 
nature was his insistence on a certain inherency and virtue in 
each object itself. He gave no quarter to that kind of explana- 
tion which tries to refer everything wholly to something else; 
which is always assuming that the final and real essence of a 
sensible object is something behind the object and wholly and 
forever hidden from the senses. His position on this matter 
is well brought out in a treatise, written some years after the 
publication of the original disquisition, refuting objections that 
had been made to his teaching about the circulation. Speaking 
of the old theory of an imponderable, spirituous something in the 
blood, he says: "Physicians seem for major part to conclude, 
with Hippocrates, that out body is composed ... of three 
elements: containing parts, contained parts, and causes of action, 
spirits being understood by the latter term. But if spirits are 
to be taken as synonymous with causes of activity, whatever has 
power in the living body and a faculty of action must be in- 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 195 

eluded under the denomination. It would appear, therefore, 
that all spirits were neither aerial substances, nor powers, nor 
habits, nor that all were not incorporeal. . . . The spirits 
which flow by the veins or the arteries are not distinct from the 
blood, any more than the flame of a lamp is distinct from the 
inflammable vapour that is on fire, but the blood and these 
spirits signify one and the same thing though different — like 
generous wine and its spirits." 

This reasoning of Harvey's about the spirituous qualities of 
the blood is not materialism as some careless readers would take 
for granted. It is not materialism because it no more questions 
the reality of spiritual qualities, that is, qualities of whatever 
sort have "power in the living body," than it questions the 
reality of physical qualities. Blood, notice, not "living matter," 
is what Harvey is talking about. He is not postulating some- 
thing or other behind blood that explains its life-eiving at- 
tributes. Nor has the vast chemico-physical knowledge of the 
blood acquired since Harvey worked altered one whit his in- 
terpretation of the nature of blood. And his mode of reasoning 
is just as applicable to the brain as to the blood. 

One of the worst misdemeanors the transcendental physiology 
of our day is guilty of, is the application of the term epiphe- 
nomenon to consciousness. 

While Harvey's researches on the blood system were undoubt- 
edly far and away his best, what he did on generation can not 

If ' 
be neglected even in a brief review of his contribution to man s 

knowledge of himself. The most important aspect of his treat- 
ment of this subject is the extent to which he compared man 
with other organisms. We have emphasized the -fact that the dis- 
covery of the circulation was a preeminent forward step in man's 
perception of the order, the unification there is in his own 
individual being. The studies on generation coupled Avith those 
on the circulation (for whatever subject engaged him, Harvey 
never neglected to compare man with all the creatures high or 
low, he could get hold of) undoubtedly contributed greatly to 
man's perception of himself as a member of the great system of 
the living world. The demonstration of the circulation was a 
revelation of a prime unity within the individual man. The 

14— S 



196 University of Texas Bulletin 

studies on generation, while resulting in no single discovery 
of first rank, were definitely on the road to the demonstrati &n 
of the individual's unity with organic nature as a whole. "By 
the same stages in the development of every animal," he said, 
"passing through the constitutions of all, I may say — ovum, 
worm, embryo — it acquires additional perfection in each." He 
certainly came very near the now familiar truth that the egg 
is the starting point in the life career of almost all animals. 

Is it not obvious, then, that by the end of the great era we are 
commemorating, men were coming to see, more through the w^ork 
of Harvey than through that of any other one person., that the 
ancient motto, Know Thyself, could not be restricted to the 
temples of Religion and Philosophy, but must be placed in those 
of Science as well? 

Now as to whether the work of Shakespeare likewise contains 
evidence of a growing perception of the essential unity between 
the physical and the "spiritual. The poet seems to be the pre- 
eminently skilled gTiesser of the human species. He is endowed 
above all others with the faculty of apprehending from afar 
the hidden truths of nature. Not in imagination only, but in 
the quality of sense perception is he superior to other men. 
He seems to know what is "in the air" of his time better than 
anybody else. 

To Shakespeare man was the most absorbingly interesting of 
all animals. He regarded his fellows, not as problems to be 
minutely investigated, but as creatures to be watched for the 
purpose of guessing what they would do under hypothetical 
conditions. 

Just what sort of mixture of the natural and supernatural 
the animal is which interested him so supremely, seems alwaj^s 
to have puzzled Shakespeare. That he could make Macbeth, 
about as unmitigated a piece of human animality as can be 
imagined, scare the Spirits into telling him what he wanted 
to know by threatening them wdth an eternal curse, illustrates 
the puzzled state of his understanding. But on the whole it 
appears that not only did Shakespeare find the natural the dis- 
tinctly larger ingredient in the mixture, but that as he grew in 
experience and insight, he saw more and more of the natural 
and saw its meaning more clearly. 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 197 

From Venus and Adonis, one of his earliest productions, to 
The Tempest, one of his latest, I seem to find a distinct advance 
in this matter. Possibly my interpretation of Prospero is forced 
into conformity with my preconceptions ; but does not his setting 
free of Ariel and Caliban, half-natural beings upon whom he had 
relied for some of his wonder-working, and his abjuring of "this 
rough magic," and his breaking of "my staff" and burying it 
"certain fathoms in the earth", as he attains the highest level 
of forgivenness and well-wishing toward those who had wronged 
him, mean that only when he became a man and. a man only, 
was he at his best ? 

One of the most useful bits of Shakespearean philosophy I 
have come upon is contained in the advice of Prospero to the 
King of Naples, who is perplexed because there "is more in this 
business than nature was ever conduct of." 

"Sir, my liege, 
Do not infest your mind with beating on 
The strangeness of this business ; at picked leisure 
Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you. 
Which to you shall seem probable, of every 
These happened accidents; till then, be cheerful 
And think of each thing well." 

Before you jump beyond the bounds of nature for the explana- 
tion of things that are hard and strange, think well and cheer- 
fully on each item and decide which of the several possible ex- 
planations is the one most probable. What more wholesome 
counsel was ever given ! I am sure Socrates never advised more 
wisely. 

So I think we must conclude that this supreme poet, too, helped 
to convince man that if he would really know himself, he must 
know himself as a physical as well as a spiritual being. The an- 
cient injunction must be adopted in the temples of Poesy and 
all Art no less than in those of Philosophy and Religion and 
Science. 

What, finally, is our era contributing to man's understand- 
ing of himself? What does — what must — the injunction mean 
in the light of modern knowledge ? Under the necessity of being 



198 University of Texas Bulletin 

brief we will limit the inquiry to the realm of objective science, 
and will notice six great achievements during the three hundred 
years since Shakespeare and Harvey which seem to me of special 
importance in their bearing on the question. These are: (1) 
the formulation of the law of gravitation; (2) the discovery of 
the conservation of matter and energy; (3) the demonstration 
of the absolute dependence of living beings on a few well-known 
non-living chemical substances; (4) the demonstration that both 
individual living beings and kinds, or species of such beings, 
originate from other individuals and species, and so far as can 
be made out, that they originate in no other way; (5) the 
demonstration of the enormously wide, if not the universal, 
prevalence in the living world of individual speeifity, so deep- 
seated as to implicate much of the individual's chemico-physical 
constitution; and finally (6), the demonstration by anthropology, 
in all the human race so far rigorously investigated, of the 
whole range of major attributes, physical and spiritual, that are 
characteristic of the species. These achievements of science I 
count not necessarilj^ as the most important from all points of 
view, but only from their bearing on the problem of the funda- 
mental unity or, as it seems to me better expressed, integrated- 
ness, of the individual man ; and of the fundamental integrated- 
ness among the individuals of the species man and of the species, 
with nature generally. 

(1) Let gravitation stand as the type of physical integration, 
and let us remember that we have absolutely no experiential 
ground on which to base a speculation as to how any one of the 
myriads of bodies in the universe would behave were it entirely 
alone. The very terms in Avhich the law is stated implies at 
least two bodies without an intimation that either is more im- 
portant, more ancient, or more causal than the other. Each not 
only moves but exists in virtue of the existence of the other. 
And do not neglect to notice that man is no le^s subject to the 
law than is any other body. 

(2) The law of conservation practically implies transforma- 
tion coextensively with conservation. It would be meaningless 
without transformation. Evolution, taken in the most general 
sense, is but another form of statement of the laws of transfer- 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 199 

mation and consei-vation. Gravitation is a universal law of 
support for bodies, while transformation is a universal law of 
the origin of bodies. 

(3) The dependence of living beings on chemical substances 
is only a special case of the general law of transformation and 
conservation; but the discovery of it merits inclusion in our 
list of science's prime achievements because of its great import- 
ance to the problem of man's dependence upon nature. 

Concerning the origin of individuals and species, the transfor- 
mations involved are of two radically different sorts. First, 
there is the sort known" as organic evolution, which does not 
consist in a literal transformation of parent into offspring, that 
is, in a changing over of parent into offspring without loss of 
weight as one physical or chemical body changes into another, 
but rather in a growth of the derived individual or species from 
a small portion of the parent. And second, this growth is ac- 
complished by the transformation of foreign substances into the 
growing organism through the nutritive process. 

(5) The far-reaching facts of what I have called individual 
specificity among organisms have only lately come clearly to 
light, and even yet their significance is but vaguely seen. In 
the middle and later years of the last century, biologists talked 
much about Protoplasm, written with a capital P, the assump- 
tion being that there is one simple substance common to all 
life. But the capital P has gradually disappeared from scien- 
tific writing, for we are learning that each species and individual 
has its own particular protoplasm. Similarly the notion was 
formerly prevalent that germ cells of animals are "practically 
alike." But closer scrutiny has revealed the fallacy of this 
idea. We now know that the germs of different organisms are 
in their fundamentals as different from one another as are the 
full-grown organisms; and we view the egg from which an in- 
dividual animal grows as that individual in the one-celled stage 
of its life. 

Do you sot perceive something of the important difference 
of viewpoint here? If from the simplest and earliest stage of 
its existence, each individual is to some extent different from 
every other, it is so far self -responsible for its own future de- 



200 University of Texas Bulletin 

velopment and activity. Growing at the expense of the few in- 
organic substances which are the common bounty of all living 
beings, it and it alone must have the ability to transform the 
common substances into its own special substances. Each organ- 
ism is indeed a chemico-physical machine, if one chooses so to 
call it, but it is a particular machine — in deepest meaning a self, 
for it has an essential part in its own making and in the pres- 
ervation of its own identity. The supreme significance of mod- 
ern biology to philosophy is the establishment of both the in- 
violability of the individual and the interdependencies within 
and among individuals, as never before have these truths been 
established. 

(6) Another set of facts which science has only recently 
brought home to us is the universality in the human species how- 
ever low in culture, racially or individually, of at least the 
rudiments of all those attributes which chaiacterize the highest 
of the species. Although increase of information in one quarter 
has continually strengthened belief in the origin of man from 
some lower animal, accumulation of knowledge in another quar- 
ter has completely annihilated belief that there is on earth now or 
for milleniums has been a being even approximately transitional 
between man and beast. All the races whose culture we know 
anything positive about are indubitably men. The existence of 
highly elaborated language, and of at least the beginnings of 
social institutions and laws, poetry, delineative art, religion, and 
reasoning about nature, among all people to which science has 
had access, has put a quietus forever on the old notion that 
certain primitive races are "hardly human" — are "little, if at 
all above the beasts of the field" — are "without souls." 

A fact the significance of which seems not to have been dwelt 
upon by writers on morals is that anthropologists who study 
primitive races long and closely in their homes always, so far 
as I have observed, come to have a much higher regard for these 
races than chance acquaintance suggests. And frequently this 
regard ripens into genuine esteem, even affection. Inquiry into 
this matter ought to yield interesting results. Is the affection 
which grows up between the investigator and the savage whom 
he studies merely that which the owner of a pet dog or cat 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 201 

or horse has for his chattel, or is it more akin to the affection o£ 
friend for friend? Which cares more genuinely for nature 
people, the missionary who lives among them to save them for 
a future world, or the scientist who lives with them in order that 
he may know them? Is the missionary ever really successful 
until he comes to have- a genuine interest in his people as 
physical beings — a genuine solicitude for their physical as well 
as for their spiritual welfare? I suspect that some of the 
strongest practical evidence there is in favor of the doctrine of 
the "brotherhood of man" is in the intelligent affection which 
grows up between highly cultured Caucasians who live long 
and intimately among primitive peoples for the purpose of know- 
ing them and helping them. 

One of the significant things about the hnmanness of nature 
peoples is the seeming coincidence of the- main categories of 
human faculty. There appears to be no observational evidence 
that som? one or a few of these attributes are more primitive 
than all the others and gave birth to the others. There is, for 
example, no proof that rationality preceded and produced the 
esthetic, the social, and the religious instincts ; or per contra. 
It seems that all these must have emerged together or nearly 
so, and that they must have always been closely interlocked and 
interdependent. 

The evidence as to the exact manner of man's origin con- 
tains much that is conflicting and exceedingly puzzling. The 
situation is certainly one in which Prospero's advice to Alonzo 
is in order. It calls for careful, cheerful search for what is 
most probable rather than for dogged defence of some theory 
he-Id as though it were absolute and sufficient truth. 

Does this meager narative of the achievements of science which 
bear on the problem of man's nature and his place in nature 
fail to convince you that science has something basal and indis- 
pensable to contribute to man's understanding of himself? Is 
there any question that the injunction of old should have a place 
in the temples of Science as well as in those of Philosophy and 
Religion and Art? 

What bearing has the argument presented on the transcendent 
question of how men and nations should treat one another — 



202 University of Texas Bulletin 

should behave toward one another? Among the teachings about 
the nature of morality that have been potent in the history of 
mankind, here is one which says that the world itself is a moral 
order — that all thing|i>work together for Good whether you love 
the Lord or not. I hope you see that the conceptions sketched 
this morning resemble this teaching more than any other with 
which you are familiar. But I hope you see also wherein they 
differ from it. That nature is moral I do not contend — I do 
not believe. So much destruction and suffering and death are 
brought upon man by flood, earthquake, pestilence and the rest, 
as to make this personified view of nature untenable. What I 
do say is that man as biology knows him, no less than as theology 
and philosophy know him, is a moral thing. Notice 1 do not 
say he is necessarily a good being. What I mean is that he is a 
being who consciously estimates his reciprocal acts with his 
fellow's as good or bad and by this is moral. But since nature 
produces and sustains man, it must be so constituted that it 
can produce and sustain moral beings. I am judging nature in 
strict accordance with the laws of natural production as obser- 
vational knowledge finds them. An essential element in the law 
of organic genesis is that the germ plus its environment is suffi- 
cient to account for the completed organism. And this law is 
but a special case of the general law that everything found in 
an effect is implicit in its causes. This commonplace is brought 
forward to use as a stepping stone to what is not a commonplace : 
by examining nature broadly as we have tried to this morning, 
we are able to see something of what there is in her constitu- 
tion that enables her to produce moral beings. It is exactly that 
fundamental originative and sustentative interdependence among 
the parts, that basal integratedness of nature upon which we 
have discoursed, that endows her with this sort of creative power. 
To summarize: Scrutiny of the human species in the manner 
that descriptive biology scrutinizes all living things discovers 
this species to have certain very peculiar attributes : desire for 
companionship, sympathy with the unfortunate and the fort- 
unate, a sense of dependence upon and obligation to others, love 
of kindred and non-kindred, and so on. The possession of these 
attributes marks the species as not merely gregarious, but in the 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Karvey 203 

deepest sense social. Out of the observation and personal ex- 
perience of these attributes in their best development there has 
grown the conception that the members of the species consti- 
tute a brotherhood. And notice that the fact that each of these 
attributes has its antithesis does not in the least affect the es- 
sential point before us. Day is no less day because there is 
also night. The social feelings one possesses are none the less 
positive because of unsocial feelings one may also possess. Love 
is none the less love because hate exists. 

The historic doctrine of human brotherhood grew out of these 
germinal feelings of man. Speculation as to the origin and sanc- 
tion of these feelings has usually been sought, especially in. the 
Western world, beyond nature. But now in these later centu- 
ries comes science to demonstrate the physical counterpart of the 
spiritual, doctrine of brotherhood. 

And now the final word: If ever we mortals attain to true 
self-wisdom, wisdom that is not alone saving but creative of 
Self, we shall win it by devoutly seeking in the temples of 
Religion, Art, and Science alternately. No man can become wise 
unto eternal life by worshipping in one kind of temple only. 

And when such wisdom shall be reached, each self will have 
become conscious that he himself is because other Selves are. 
Each Self will know that however much of struggle ending in 
triumph or defeat, however much of ambition, mean or noble, 
enter into the great drama of human life, it is all only a part 
of the stupendous totality of things, the supreme glory of which 
is, so far as positive knowledge can reach, that it has produced 
and is producing man not only at his worst, but also at his best. 



Kpptnhxx 



The Shakespeare Tercentenary Commemoration at the 
University of Texas 

Formal preparation for the Shakespeare Tercentenary Gom- 
memoration at the University of Texas began when Professor 
R. H. Griffith offered a motion at a meeting: of the General 
Faculty in the spring of 1915 that a committee of five be ap- 
pointed to prepare and have presented a suitable program. 
The vote upon the motion was unanimous in its favor. Doctor 
Battle, Acting President, appointed as the committee Messrs. 
Fay, Barker, Lomax, Young, and Griffith (chairman). Upon 
the resignation of Mr. Young from the University shortly after- 
wards, his place was supplied by Mr. Richards. At a meeting 
early in the summer the chairman was empowered to act for 
the committee. 

The program decided upon planned a series of exercises on 
a much larger scale than had ever before been attempted at this 
University. First, there were to be commemoration exercises 
on the campus in April of 1916. Later, a memorial volume, con- 
taining addresses and essays, was to be published. The present 
volume is the accomplishment of the latter half of the plans. 
The warm commendation In the accounts of the April events 
published by both local and out-of-town newspapers attests the 
complete success of the first half. 

The committee could and did arrange for addresses from dis- 
tinguished visiting scholars, for outdoor plays by a professional 
troupe, for an exhibit of Shakespearean books, maps, prints, 
and pictures — all for the delight and instruction of students 
and faculty. Addresses were delivered by Professor John M. 
Manly, of the University of Chicago ; Professor Barrett Wendell, 
of Harvard University; Judge R. L. Batts, of Austin; and 
Professor William E. Ritter, of the Scrips Biological Labora- 
tory, La Jola, California. In the foregoing pages are printed 
these addresses, together with articles contributed by friendly 
scholars, former instructors, and present members of the staff 
of the University of Texas. 

[204] 



Memorial Volume to Sliakespeare and Harvey 205 

But beyond these it was deemed highly desirable to arrange 
a portion of the program in which faculty and students should 
be actors, not merely spectators. A beginning was made with 
the department of athletics for women. For several years pre- 
ceding, it had ^ven a spring exhibition of games, exercises, and 
dances. For 1916 it was willing, as a substitute, to take a part 
in the Commemoration program. Then a dozen sections from 
the freshman cla.ss of the men's gymnasium were invited to 
join the girls in preparing folk dances. Thus the first half of 
the program for the night of April 22 was arranged for. For 
the remaining part a Bartholomew Fair scene Avas* devised, and 
Phi Alpha Tau, a society composed of members selected from 
the variou-s dramatic and debating clubs of the University, 
agreed, to undertake its preparation. In these two groups 
nearly a thousand students were included. The resulting com- 
bination of lights, music, color, and action — a goodly proportion 
even of the thousands of spectators came in Elizabethan cos- 
tume — was a spectacle of beauty and gaiety. 

Active participation for the remaining students and for the 
faculty had to be arranged for. The chairman sought the 
advice and assistance of a committee of ladies, some of them 
wives of professors, some members of the faculty, some friends 
of the ITniversity of long standing. A pageant procession was 
decided on. One who has had no experience with such an under- 
taking can have little conception of the immense amount of 
work a pageant entails. To the ladies who assumed this whole 
burden and whose names are gratefully recorded in the subse- 
quent committee lists, the general committee and the whole 
University community owes a debt of thanks. They evolved a 
system of subdividing the students and faculty into groups ; of 
assigning to each unit a play of Shakespeare to impersonate, or a 
period of his life to represent ; of providing troupes of minstrels 
to sing glees en route, and bands of halberdiers to keep clear 
the line of march. They designed perspectives and proportions, 
schemes of color and tints for each unit and for the procession 
as a whole ; they studied numerous books and prints, drew and 
colored historically accurate pictures of old-time costumes, and 
posted dozens of them on the bulletin boards. They bought and 



206 University of Texas Bulletin 

sold at wholesale prices materials for hats and suits; they prac- 
tically card-catalogued every dress-maker in Austin, and mobil- 
ized women and machines for the making of hundreds of 
costumes; they even went into the chemical laboratory and 
dyed scores of pairs of stockings to secure just the right shade. 
Their reward for it all was the brilliant parade in the late 
afternoon of Saturday, April 22. 

In divers fashions Town joined with Gown for the Com- 
memoration. "Wednesday afternoon the campus was given over 
to a thousand children from three of the ward schools for their 
folk-dances and fairy-playing. Sunday night many of the city 
ministers, adopting a suggestion of the committee, gave the 
Tercentenary a place in their sermons. And the women's clubs 
and a large number of Austin ladies not directly associated 
with the University were patronesses of our Commemoration, 
entering so heartily into the spirit of it as to make and wear 
such costumes as the old Globe Theatre itself must many a 
time have seen. 

Our April days were a gala season most successful and long 
to be remembered. 



THE COMMITTEE OF THE FACULTY 

Professor R. H. Griffith, Chairman 
Professor Edwin W. Fay Professor Eugene C. Barker 
Mr. John A. Lomax Doctor Aute Richards 

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE 

Professor James F. Royster 
Professor John T. Patterson Professor A. C. Judson 

BUSINESS MANAGER 

L. Theo Belmont, Director of Atliletics 

DIRECTOR OF THE LIBRARY EXHIBIT 

John E. Goodwin, Librarian 

DIRECTORS OF MUSIC 

Professor Frank L. Reed 
Mr. George Holmes ]\Irs. J. A. DeHaas 

DIRECTOR OF LIGHTING 

Professor S. LeRoy Brown 

LADIES ADVISORY COMMITTEE 

Professor Mary E. Gearing 

Mrs. R. H. Griffith Mrs. Spurgeon Bell 

Miss Margaret Boroughs Mrs. J. F. Royster 

Miss Hallie Walker Mrs. A. C. Ellis 

Mrs. S, E. Gideon Mrs. J. B. Wharey 

Mrs. L. H. Haney Mrs. H. W. Peck 

Miss Mattie Lockett Miss Anna Muckelroy 

Miss Eunice Aden Miss E. C. Meguiar 

Miss F. A. Simms 

[207] 



208 



University of Texas Bulletin 



STUDENTS ADVISORY COMMITTEE 



Mr. W. R. Allen 
Mr. M. a. Knight 
Mr. George Hexter 
Mr. Bupord Jester 
Mr. Floyd Smith 
Mr. J. R. Parten 



Mr. E. B. Naugle 
Mr. Hubert Jones 
Mr. p. S. Clarke 
Mr. R. Vander StrAten 
Mr. N. E. Travers 



DIRECTORS OF THE PAGEANT PROCESSION 

Mrs. R. H. Griffith, Chairman 
Mrs. J. F. Royster, English Unit 

Mrs. E. W. Patterson, Law Unit 

Miss Hazel Hornsby, Engineering Unit 

Mrs. E. T. Miller, Social Sciences Unit 
Mrs. E. p. Schoch, Natural Sciences Unit 

Miss Lucile M. Rawlins, Education Unit 

Miss Ann E. Richardson, Domestic Economy Unit 
Mrs. J. A. DeHaas ( Business Training and 
Mrs. a. L., Green (Journalism Unit 
Miss Roberta Lavender, Ancient Languages Unit 
Miss Hilda Norman, Modern Languages Unit 
Miss Mattie Lockett, "Cap and Gown" Unit 



DIRECTORS OF FOLK DANCES 

Miss Eunice Aden Miss Louise H. Wright 

Mr. Roy B. Henderson 

DIRECTOR OF AESTHETIC DANCES 

Miss Annie Lee Cosby 



DESIGNERS OF COSTUMES 



Miss Fannie A. Sims 
Mrs. H. W. Peck 



Miss Elizabeth C. Meguiar 
Mr. S. E.- Gideon 



Miss Anna Muckelroy 



Memorial Volume to SJiakespeare and Harvey 209 

DESIGNER OF ELIZABETHAN MENU 

Miss Jennie R. Bear 

GENEROUS PURVEYORS OF COSTUME MATERIALS 

SCARBROUGH & SONS McKeAN, EiLERS & Co. 

Of Austin 

Sanger Brothers 
Of Dallas 



1616-1916 
®ljr llmurrfittg of S^xaa 

(Eomm^tttDration 



APRIL 22 TO 26 
AUSTIN, TEXAS 



FOUR ADDRESSES, FOUR OUTDOOR PLAYS, FOUR MUSICAL 
ORGANIZATIONS, TWO SOLOISTS, A SHAKESPEARE 
PAGEANT, AN ELIZABETHAN REVEL, A LI- 
BRARY EXHIBIT 




15— S 



A ^Ijak^BpFar^ Pageant 

At ^\x ®l]!rta ®'dork 



1. Shakespeare as a Twelve Year Old Boy at Kenilworth 

Castle English, General Literature, and 

Public Speaking Unit. 

2. London Life Law Unit. 

3. Merchant of Venice Law Unit. 

4. Hamlet : Selected Unit. 

5. Midsummer Night's Dream Business Training 

and Journalism LTnit. 

6. Julius Caesar . .Ancient Languages Unit. 

7. Merry "Wives of Windsor Social Sciences Unit. 

8. "Winter's Tale. .Domestic Economy Unit. 

9. As You Like It Natural Sciences Unit. 

10. Richard III Education Unit 

11. Taming of the Shrew Modern Languages Unit. 

12. Shakespeare 's Women Cap and Gown Society Unit. 

Shakespeare and Bacon 
Bands of Minstrel Singers Glee Club and Associates. 

The route of the Pageant is along certain Campus walks. 
Spectators will please KEEP OFF ALL WALKS. 

The twelve units appear three minutes apart. 

At advantageous spots each unit will pause for a tableau. 

Each stopping point is marked by a flag. 

Every unit pauses before each flag. 

The tableau of the first unit is from the Revel at Kenilworth 

Castle in honor of Queen Elizabeth in 1576 ; Shakespeare as a 

12-year-old lad is supposed to have been present. The London 

Life tableau is a Mermaid Tavern gathering of Shakespeare and 

his contemporaries. The tableau of each drama is a typical 

moment of the play. Shakespearer 's Women do honor to him 

as their creator. 

[212] 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 213 

The bands of minstrels march between ' units, singing old 
English ballad-songs: "As I Walked throngh the Meadows," 
"My Man John," "The Coasts of Barbary," "Midsummer 
Fair, " " The Brisk Young Widow, " " The Keys of Canterbury, ' ' 
"Green Broom," "Tree in the Wood," "As I Sat on Sunny 
Bank," "Bingo." 

Leave a clear space about each flag. Keep off all walks. 

Automobiles banked along Guadalupe between 21st and 23rd 
Streets will be excellently located. 

TJie Pageant looks its prettiest at a distance of from 100 to 
600 feet. 



(§n (Elark Wxtih 
At lEtglit ®*rlnrk 



PAKT THE FIRST 



THE DANCES 



Shakespeare has reached the age of about fifty. He is now 
ready to retire from the stage. Before him appear .a crowd of 
the folk to show in folk-dances their appreciation of his plays. 
They retire, and are succeeded by the Muses and Goddesses, who 
3ome to receive back from the great author the gifts they had 
gndowed him with at his birth. In symbolical dances they in- 
iicate what those gifts are, their satisfaction with his use of 
■;hem, and their acceptance of them, now that he is near the end 
)f his life. 

THE FOLK DANCES 



BY 



THE FIRST-YEAR ATHLETIC STUDENTS 

I. Morris Dance, "Laudnum Bunches." 

II. Sailor's Hornpipe. 

Representing the round of a sailor's duties — hauling in 
anchor, hoisting sail, swinging anchor, etc. 
HI. Ribbon Dance, a Contra Dance. 



[214] 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 215 
THE AESTHETIC, SYMBOLICAL DANCES 



BY 



TPIE ADVANCED DANCING CLASS 



I. The Nine Muses. Chopin's "Grande Valse Brillante." 

First in a solo, then in a sronp. 
Misses Estelle Goldstein, Josei>hine Taylor, Frances Clark, 
Wortley Harris, Josephine Betehel, Helen Moblev, Mary 
Eed, Rnth Rose, Louisa Keasbey. 
The costumes of the group as a whole represent the rain- 
bow, and each Muse carries the symbol of her own art. 
Their gift was all knowledge to be his province. 

II. Iris. . Grieg's "IIumores(iue in Valsc Time." 

Miss Agnes Doran. 
The costume is again rainbow hued, for Iris means the 
rainbow. Iris is the messenger of the Goddesses. Her 
gift was hope. 

III. Juno, Queen of Heaven. Chopin's "^lilitary polonaise." 
Miss Katherine Peers. 
Royal purple with white stait". Attendants, in purple 
with staves. Juno gave the master dominion over the 
hearts and minds of men. 

IV. Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom. 

Weber's "Invitation to the Dance." 
INIiss Florence Bell. 
Gray and rose; a shield with Medusa's heart on it. At- 
tendants, in blue and rose with shields. Minerva gave 
power to understand life aright. 

V. Ceres, Deity of Plentiful Harvest. 

Chopin's "Nocturne in E Flat Major." 
Miss Ginevra Harris. 
Gold and yellow, Avith her symbol of abundant crops. 
Attendants, with baskets of fruit. The gift of Ceres 
was ripeness and fullness of powers. 



216 University of Texas Bulletin 

VI. Diana, Huntress of Heaven and Goddess of Chastity. 

Schubert's "Hunting Song." 
Miss Pearl Zilker. 
Hunter's green with bow and quiver. Attendants, in 
green with bows, dance to Reinhardt's "The Chase." 
Diana endowed the poet with modesty. 

VII. (a) Venus, Goddess of Love. 

Mozkowski's "Love's Awakening." 
Miss Annie Louise Stayton. 
Rose and pink wdth flowers. 

(b) Cupid, Son of Venus. 

Little Miss Frances Tarlton. 

(c) Fairies. 

A group of children, in white and spangles. 
Attendants of Venus, with garlands of roses. 

VIII. Ensemble Finale. 

All the dancers gather before Shakespeare. The God- 
desses and Muses approach and receive back the gifts 
they had given. All kneel. Shakespeare breaks his 
wand. The pageant of his life is past. 



PART THE SECOND 



BARTHOLOMEW FAIRE 



Management of the Guild of Phi Alpha Tau 
Mr. Floyd Smith, Master of the Revels to her Majesty 
I. Old English Ballad Songs. 

The Glee Club: 

II. "From Bartholomew Faire to Shoreditch:" A Playlet 

Being the rough course travelled over by the corjjulent 
Knight. 



Memorial Volume to Shal-espeare and Harvey 217 



CAST OF CHARACTEKS: 

Sir John Falstaff Ben ^Nlarable 

Dame Quickly R. L. Skiles 

Justice xUva Carlton 

Clerk of the Court Floyd Smith 

Big Bailiff Robert McClelland 

Little Bailiff ; ' Leslie Etter 

Pistol Lewy Dunn 

Bardolph (in pillory) . Carl Calloway 

Yeomen, witnesses, court crier, and mnch people. 

Resume. Scene opens with Falstaff abusingr Dame Quickly 
before the platform on which Pie Powder Conrt is in session. 
Arrested, he uses his wiles to conciliate the Hostess, who prays' 
that the charge against her lover be expunged. The Justice- 
complies. But no sooner is Dame Quickly off to get withdrawn 
a suit previously entered at "Westminster than the Justice re- 
verses his opinion and condemns the "woman ciueller"" to a; 
hnmiliating punishment. 

After the trial the Court adjourns to 

IIL The Mermaid Tavern : Song and Cyder 

Master Shakes}>earc Rex Shaw 

Ben Jonson Arthur Uhl 

Master Skylark, cousin to Shakespeare Lewy Dnnn' 

The SPECTATORS will be pleased to leave their seats and 
accompany the Court to the tavern for refreshments. Be sure 
to see each one of the marvels of the Faire : — 

Puppet Show. Archery : ' ' Target in the Water. ' ' Bowling 
on the Gre<?n. Wi^estling Match. The Most Wonderful Cata- 
most. The Cock Pit. Bout at Quarteretaff. Medicine Vendor. 
The Great Shadow Fight. Fortune Tellers. And all other 
whatsoever. 



218 University of Texas Bulletin 

April 24, 1910 



MONDAY MORNING, APRIL 24 

12:00 o'clock, university auditorium 

General Introduction President W. J. Battle 

Ancient Songs : The University Chorus 

''WJio Is Sylvia?'' Ravenscroft, 1614; Morley, 1595 

"Bloiv, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" Dr. Arne 

"Since First I saw your Face" Thos. Ford. 

Introduction of the Speaker Prof. J. F. Royster 

^ ' Shakespeare Himself " Address by John 

Matthews Manly, Ph. D., Head of the Department of English, 
University of Chicago. 

MONDAY AFTERNOON 

4:00 o'clock, university auditorium 

^'Shakespeare in Texas" Prof. R. A. Law 

Ancient Songs Mrs. Charles H. Sander 

"Green Sleeves" Ancient Melody from W. Bal- 
let's Lute Book, Composed in the Reign of Henry VIII. 

"Heigh ho! for a Husband" From John 

Gamble's MS. Common-Place Book. 

Introduction of the Speaker Dean H. Y. Benedict 

"Shakespeare, Purveyor to the Public" . .Address by R. L. Batts 
United States Attorney, Austin and New York. 

MONDAY EVENING 

7^00 o'clock, campus 
Outdoor Concert The University Band 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 219 

MONDAY NIGHT 

8:30 o^CLOCK 

Outdoor Play The Devereux Players 

TWELFTH NIGHT 

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

CAST OF CHARACTERS 

A Sea Captain Edgar Ware 

Viola Ethel Huyler Gray 

Sir Toby Belch, Uncle to Olivia Clitford Devereux 

Maria, Niece to Olivia Millicent McLaughlin 

Sir Andrew Aguecheck, His Friend Henry Buckler 

Orsino, Duke of Illyria Dennis Cleugh 

Curio, Gentleman attending Orsino John Jarrett 

Valentine, A Gentleman attending Orisino. ... .John Gilchrist 

First Lord Henry Thomas 

Second Lord Maurice Ingram 

Feste, A Clown William Podmore 

Olivia Adele Klaer 

Malvolio, Steward to Olivia Charles Fleming 

Musician Edmund J. Fitzpatrick 

Sebastian, Brother to Viola Peter Golden 

Antonio, a Sea Captain, Friend to Sebastian. .Madefrey Odhner 

Fabian, Servant to Olivia John Jarrett 

An Officer Harold Heath 

A Priest Burr Chapman 

Musicians . . . .Felix Rappo, Salvotore De Salvo, John De Salvo 

Characters in the order in which they 'speak. 
In case of rain, plays will be staged in University Auditorium. 



220 University of Texas Bulletin 






TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 25 

12:00 o'clock, university auditorium 

Ancient Song • The Women 's Chorus: 

"Under tlie Greenicood Tree" Richards 

Elizabethan Madrigal The University Chorns 

"Love in Prayers" C. V. Stanford (1852) 

Ancient words, modern music. 

Introduction of the Speaker Prof. Morgan Callaway, Jr. 

"The GroivtJi of Shakespeare" Address by Barrett 

Wendell, Professor of English, Harvard Univeifsity. 

TUESDAt AFTERNOON 

3:30 o'clock 

Outdoor Play The Devereux Players 

THE CRITIC 

BY RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 

CAST OF CHARACTERS 

CHARACTERS IN ACT I 

'Mr. Dangle Charles Fleming 

Mrs. Dangle Millicent McLaughlin 

A Servant Arthur Barney 

Mr. Sneed John Gilchrist 

Sir Fretful Plagiary Henry Buckler 

Mr. Puff William Podmore 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare aivd Harvey 221 

CAST OF MR. puff's TRAGEDY 



Prompter Harold Heath 

Leader of Orchestra John De Salvo 

First Sentinel Edmund J. Fitzpatriek 

Second Sentinel Burr Chapman 

Sir Shristopher Hatton Madefrey Odhner 

Sir Walter Raleigh John Jarrett 

Earl of Leicester Peter Golden 

Governor of Tilbury Fort Dennis Golden 

Ma^iter of the Horse S. De Salvo 

Tilburina Ethel Hurler Gray 

Conlidant Adele Klaer 

Whiskerandos Clifford Devereux 

Beef-Eater Henry Buckler 

First Niece Yvonne Jarrette 

Second Niece Helen Lyon Merriam 

Musicians. . . .Felix Rappo, Salvotore De Salvo, John De Salvo 

ACT I— Bi-eakfast at Mr. Dangle 's 

ACT II— Scene I— Before the Curtain of the Theatre. 

Characters in the order in which they appear. 
In ease of rain, plays will be staged in University Auditorium. 

TUESDAY NIGHT 

8:30 o'clock 

Outdoor Play The Devereux Players 

COMEDY OF ERRORS 

BY WnXIAM SHAKESPEARE 

CAST OF CHARACTERS 

Solinus, Duke of Ephesus Harold Heath 

Aegeon, A Merchant of Syracuse Peter Golden 

A Gaoler Edmund J. Fitzpatriek 



222 ■ University of Texas Bulletin 

Balthazar of Syracuse, Twin Brother, Son to Aegeon and 

Amelia bat unknown to each other Dennis Cleugh 

Droniio of Syracuse William Podmore 

Dromio of Ephesus ^ Henry Buckler 

Twin Brothers attendants on the two Antipholus 
Adriana, Wife to Antipholus Ephesus .... Millicent McLaughlin 

Lueiana, Her Sister Ethel Huyler Gray 

Antipholus of Ephesus, Twin brother, Son to Aegeon and 

Amelia but unknown to each other Charles Fleming 

Luce, Servant to Adriana Yvonne Jarrette 

Angelo, A Goldsmith Madefrey Odhner 

Officer John Gilchrist 

A Courtesan -. Adele Klaer 

Dr. Pinch, A Conjurer Clifford Devereux 

Headsman Edgar Ware 

Amelia, Wife to Aegeon Helen Lyon Merriam 

Musicians. . . .Felix Rappo, Salvotore De Salvo, John De Salvo 
CJiaracters in the order in which they appear. 
In case of rain, plays will be staged in University Auditorium 



Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey 2:23 

April 20, 191fi 

WEDNESDAY MORNING, APRIL 26 

12:00 o'clock 

"A Teacher of Shakespeare: A Eulogy" Prof. E. W. Fay 

An Ancient Song Mrs. J. W. Morris 

"Willoiv Song" Traditional 

"Willow Song" (from Othello) Verdi 

Introdnction of the Speaker Prof. J. T. Patterson 

'' 'Knoiv Thyself — Interpreted hy Socrates, Shakespeare, Har- 
vey, and Men of Today" Address by Wm. E. Ritter. 

Director of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research of 
the University of California. 

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON 

2:30 o'clock 

First Session, Annual Meeting The Texas Folk-Lore Society 

Prof. Barrett Wendell will address the Society 

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON 

5:00 o'clock 

A SHAKESPEARE FETE 

on the university campus 
By the Pupils of Baker, Winn, and Wooldridge Public Schools 

PART THE FIRST 

THE queen's entertainment 

1. Procession to the Green 

2. Entrance of Her Majesty and Court 

3. Puck's Invitation of Shakespeare's Fairies and Fools to 

Frolic among the Flowers. 

4. Will's Players before the Queen 



22-i University of Texas Bulletin 



PART THE SECOND 

1. Sellinger's Round 

2. The Maypole 

3. Ruffty Tuffty 

4. Bean Setting 

5. Sally Lnker 

6. Sellinger's Round 

WEDNESDAY NIGHT 

8:30 o'clock 

Outdoor Play The Devereux Players 

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER 

BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

CAST OF CHARACTERS 

Mr. Hardcastle, A Country Gentleman Charles Fleming 

Mrs. Hardcastle, His Wife Millicent McLaughlin 

Tony Lumpkins, Son to Mrs. Hardcastle Clifford Devereux 

Kate Hardcastle, Daughter to Mr. Hardcastle 

Ether Huyler Gray 

Constance Neville, Cousin to Tony . .Adele Klaer 

Tom Twist, A Bear Dancer Madefrey Odhner 

Jack Slang, A Horse Doctor .Arthur Barney 

Dick Ginger, A feeder. John Jarrett 

Muggins, An Exciseman Harold Heath 

Aminadab, A Fiddler Burr Chapman 

Stingo, the Landlord of "The Three Pigeons" William Podmore 

Maid, At ' ' The Three Pigeons " Helen Lyon Merriam 

Young Marlow, Son to Sir Charles Dennis Cleugh 

Hastings, His Friend.. Peter Golden 

Diggory Henry Buckler 

Roger Harold Heath 

Thomas . John Gilchrist 

Dick John Jarrett 

Servants to Hardcastle 



Memorial Volume to S'hakespeare and Harvey 225 

Dolly, ]\Iaid at Plardcastles Yvonne Jai'rette 

Jeremy, Servant to Young Marlow Edgar "Ware 

Sir Charles Marlow, Ilardeastle 's Friend Henry Buckler 

Musicians .... Felix Rappo, Salvotore De Salvo, John De Salvo 

Characters in the order in which they appear. 

ACT I. Scene I. — Room in Ilardeastle 's House. 
ACT II. Room in Ilardeastle 's House. 

Scene II. — A Country Inn. 
ACT III. The Same. 
ACT IV. Scene I.— Ilardeastle 's Garden. 

Scene II. — Room in Ilardeastle 's House. 

In case of rain, plays will be staged in University Auditorium. 



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